THE  CAPTURE  OF  FORT  FISHER 


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THE  CAPTURE  OP  FORT  FISHER 
By  Ma^ .-Gen. Adalbert  Ames 


Addresses  to  New  York  Oommandery, 
Loyal  Legion.  3rd  Series.  N.Y.1907 


W$t  Hibtavy 

of  the 

Untbersrttp  of  Jgortf)  Carolina 


Collection  of  J?ottf)  Carolmtana 

Cnootoeb  ftp 

f  ofm  g>prunt  ^tll 

of  the  Class  of  1889 


Cp3Hom_P)Si 


Personal  Recollections  of  the 
Rebellion 


THE  CAPTURE  OF  FORT  FISHER,  NORTH 
CAROLINA,  JANUARY  15,  1865. 

Read  by  Brevet  Major-General  Adelbert  Ames,  late 
U.  S.  Army,  February  3,  1897. 

ABOUT  the  first  of  December,  1864,  when  in  com- 
mand of  the  2d  Division,  Twenty-fourth  Corps,  of 
the  Army  of  the  James,  then  before  Richmond, 
Va.,  I  was  notified  I  had  been  selected  to  lead  my  division 
in  a  movement  by  sea,  against  some  point  of  the  Con- 
federacy on  the  Atlantic  coast. 

At  that  time  Wilmington,  N.  C,  was  the  port  through 
which  the  Confederacy  received  a  large  part  of  its  munitions 
of  war,  and  whence  was  shipped  to  England,  in  payment 
therefor,  much  of  its  cotton  and  tobacco..  Wilmington  was 
situated  on  the  east  bank  of  the  Cape  Fear  River,  thirty 
miles  from  its  mouth,  which  was  guarded  by  Fort  Fisher. 

Our  Navy  was  untiring  in  its  efforts  to  blockade  that 
port,  but  was  not  successful. 

The  order  from  General  Butler  to  General  Weitzel  rela- 
tive to  the  expedition  December  6th,  1864,  was:  > 

"  The  Major-General  commanding  has  entrusted  you  with  the 
command  of  the  expedition  about  to  embark  for  -^he  North 
Carolina  coast.     It  will  consist  of  6500  infantry,  two  batteries, 


2  THE  CAPTURE  OF  FORT  FISHER 

and  fifty  cavalry.  The  effective  men  of  General  Ames's  division 
of  the  Twenty-fourth  Corps  will  furnish  the  infantry  force.  Gen- 
eral Paine  is  under  your  orders,  and  General  Ames  will  be  ordered 
to  report  to  you  in  person  immediately." 

My  division,  of  three  brigades,  was  composed  of  New 
Hampshire,  New  York,  Pennsylvania,  and  Indiana  troops, 
about  3300  in  number.  General  Paine  had  a  division  of 
colored  troops. 

We  embarked  at  Bermuda  Hundreds,  Va.,  December 
8th,  and  our  transports  reached  the  place  of  rendezvous 
off  New  Inlet,  N.  C,  Thursday  the  15th.  Friday,  Saturday, 
and  Sunday,  we  awaited  the  coming  of  the  Navy. 

Admiral  Porter,  commanding  our  fleet,  arrived  Sunday 
evening  the  18th.  The  next  day  the  water  was  too  rough 
to  make  a  landing  on  the  ocean  beach.  Towards  evening, 
a  northeast  gale  coming  up,  the  transports  were,  sent  to 
Beaufort  for  coal  and  water,  as  the  ten  days'  supply  had 
run  short,  where  they  were  delayed  by  the  weather  and  the 
difficulty  of  getting  coal,  until  Saturday  the  24th. 

I  did  not  go  to  Beaufort,  as  my  ship,  on  which  I  had 
one  of  my  brigades,  was  well  prepared  for  such  an  emergency. 

General  Butler,  followed  by  his  fleet  of  transports,  re- 
turned to  New  Inlet  on  Saturday  the  24th  of  December, 
between  four  and  five  o'clock  in  the  afternoon. 

The  powder  boat,  which  played  such  a  notorious  part 
in  this  expedition,  had  been  exploded  at  about  two  o'clock 
on  the  morning  of  the  same  day. 

The  idea  of  the  powder  boat  was  General  Butler's,  but 
it  was  approved  of  and  adopted  by  the  Navy,  which  fur- 
nished the  vessel  and  its  share  of  the  215  tons  of  gunpowder 
used.  The  Navy  held  control  of  this  experiment  from 
first  to  last. 

The  explosion  was  untimely,  and  a  failure.  Commodore 
Jeffers  of  the  Navy  reports:  "A  part  of  the  programme 
required  that  the  vessel  should  be  grounded,  which  appears 
not  to  have  been  the  case." 

Commander  Rhind  writes:  "That,  owing  to  the  want 
of  confinement  and  insufficient  fusing  of  the  mass,  much 


THE  CAPTURE  OF  FORT  FISHER  3 

of  the  powder  was  blown  away  before  ignition  and  its 
effect  lost." 

Admiral  Porter  reports:  "That  the  powder  was  finally 
exploded  from  the  effects  of  a  fire  kindled  in  the  forecastle. 
No  results  of  value  were  to  be  expected  from  this  mode.  It 
was  proposed  only  as  a  final  resort,  in  order  to  prevent  the 
vessel,  in  any  contingency,  from  falling  into  the  hands  of 
the  enemy." 

Commander  James  Parker,  U.  S.  Navy,  stated  to  the 
New  York  Loyal  Legion,  October  5,  1892 :  "  We  all  believed 
in  it  [the  powder  boat]  from  the  Admiral  down,  but  when 
it  proved  so  laughable  a  failure  we,  of  the  Navy,  laid  its 
paternity  upon  General  Butler." 

Colonel  Lamb,  in  command,  describes  Fort  Fisher  as 
follows : 

"  At  the  land-face  of  Fort  Fisher  the  peninsula  was  about  half 
a  mile  wide,  Cape  Fear  River  being  on  one  side  and  the  Atlantic 
Ocean  on  the  other.  This  face  commenced  about  a  hundred 
feet  from  the  river  with  a  half  bastion,  and  extended  with  a 
heavy  curtain  to  a  full  bastion  on  the  ocean  side,  where  it  joined 
the  sea-face.  The  work  was  built  to  withstand  the  heaviest 
artillery  fire.  The  outer  slope  was  twenty  feet  high  from  the 
berm  to  the  top  of  the  parapet,  at  an  angle  of  forty-five  degrees, 
and  was  sodded  with  marsh  grass,  which  grew  luxuriantly. 
The  parapet  was  not  less  than  twenty-five  feet  thick,  with  an 
inclination  of  only  one  foot.  The  revetment  was  five  feet  nine 
inches  high,  from  the  floor  of  the  gun  chambers,  and  these  were 
some  twelve  feet  or  more  from  the  interior  plane.  The  guns 
were  all  mounted  in  barbette,  Columbiad  carriages;  there  was 
not  a  single  casemated  gun  in  the  fort.  Between  the  gun 
chambers,  containing  one  or  two  guns  each  (there  were  twenty 
heavy  guns  on  the  land-face) ,  there  were  (some  eighteen)  heavy 
traverses,  exceeding  in  size  any  known  to  engineers,  to  protect  from 
an  enfilading  fire.  They  extended  out  some  twelve  feet  on  the 
parapet,  running  back  thirty  feet  or  more.  The  gun  chambers 
were  reached  from  the  rear  by  steps.  In  each  traverse  was  an 
alternate  magazine  or  bomb-proof,  the  latter  ventilated  by  an 
air-chamber.  Passageways  penetrated  the  traverses  in  the 
interior  of  the  work,  forming  additional  bomb-proofs  for  the 
reliefs  of  the  guns. 


tf- — ■ 


4  THE  CAPTURE  OF  FORT  FISHER 

"  The  sea-face  was  a  mile  long,  and  for  a  hundred  yards  from 
the  northeast  bastion  was  of  the  same  massive  character  as  the 
land-face. 

"Asa  defence  against  infantry  there  was  a  system  of  subterre 
torpedoes  extending  across  the  peninsula,  five  to  six  hundred 
feet  from  the  land-face  and  so  disconnected  that  an  explosion  of 
one  would  not  affect  the  others;  inside  the  torpedoes,  about  fifty 
feet  from  the  berm  of  the  work,  extending  from  the  river  bank 
to  the  seashore,  was  a  heavy  palisade  of  sharpened  logs  nine 
feet  high,  pierced  for  musketry,  and  so  laid  out  as  to  have  an 
enfilading  fire  on  the  centre,  where  there  was  a  redoubt  guarding 
a  sally-port  from  which  two  Napoleons  were  run  out  as  occasion 
required.  At  the  river  end  of  the  palisade  was  a  deep  and 
muddy  slough,  across  which  was  a  bridge,  the  entrance  on  the 
river  road  into  the  fort ;  commanding  this  bridge  was  a  Napoleon 
gun.     There  were  three  mortars  in  rear  of  the  land-face." 

This  strong  work  had,  at  the  time  of  our  first  expedition, 
a  garrison  of  1400  men,  900  of  whom  were  veterans. 

Colonel  Lamb  had  been  incited  to  the  utmost  by  General 
Lee,  who  had  sent  him  word  that  he  "must  hold  the  fort 
or  he  could  not  subsist  his  army." 

On  the  morning  of  the  24th  the  fleet  of  Admiral  Porter 
moved  in  towards  New  Inlet  and  opened  fire  on  the  fort. 
The  character  of  this  bombardment  and  the  demands  made 
by  the  Admiral  on  his  ships  and  sailors  I  will  let  him  tell. 

'  In  his  letter  to  the  Secretary  of  the  Navy  of  the  24th 
of  December,  1864,  he  says: 


"  I  have  the  honor  to  inform  you  that  I  attacked  the  forts  at 
the  mouth  of  the  Cape  Fear  River  to-day  at  12.30.  .  .  .  After 
getting  the  ships  in  position  we  silenced  it  in  about  an  hour  and 
a  half,  there  being  no  troops  here  to  take  possession.  I  am 
merely  firing  now  to  keep  up  practice.  The  forts  are  nearly 
demolished,  and  as  soon  as  troops  come  we  can  take  possession. 
We  have  set  them  on  fire,  blown  some  of  them  up,  and  all  that  is 
wanted  now  is  troops  to  land  and  go  into  them." 

The  Admiral  failed  to  mention,  in  his  letter,  the  fact 
that  I  had  offered  1000  men  and  co-operation,  although, 
in  his  testimony  before  the  Committee  on  the  Conduct  of 


THE  CAPTURE  OF  FORT  FISHER  5 

the  War,  he  said:  "General  Ames  had  a  thousand  men 
there,  and  he  sent  on  board  and  told  me  he  was  ready  to 
land." 

In  his  letter  of  the  26th  he  says,  referring  to  the  bom- 
bardment of  the  24th: 

"In  an  hour  and  fifteen  minutes  after  the  first  shot  was  fired 
not  a  shot  came  from  the  fort.  Finding  that  the  batteries  were 
silenced  completely  I  directed  the  ships  to  keep  up  a  moderate 
fire  in  hopes  of  attracting  the  attention  of  the  transports  and 
bringing  them  in." 

In  this  same  letter  of  December  26th  Admiral  Porter 
says,  speaking  of  the  bombardment  of  the  forts  on 
December  25th: 

"  The  firing  this  day  was  slow,  only  sufficient  to  amuse  the 
enemy  while  the  army  landed.  In  the  bombardment  of  the 
25th  the  men  were  engaged  firing  slowly  for  seven  hours.  .  .  . 
Everything  was  coolly  done  throughout  the  day,  and  I  witnessed 
some  beautiful  practice." 

In  a  letter  to  the  Secretary  of  the  Navy,  December  29th, 
after  the  fleet  had  left  and  the  transports  had  gone  back  to 
Hampton  Roads,  he  writes : 

"  At  no  time  did  I  permit  the  vessels  to  open  on  them  with  all 
their  batteries,  limiting  some  of  them  to  about  two  shots  a 
minute,  and  permitting  the  large  vessels  to  fight  only  one  division 
of  guns  at  a  time;  and  the  bombardment  cost  only  a  certain 
amount  of  shells,  which  I  would  expend  in  a  month's  target 
practice  anyhow." 

Such  are  the  salient  features  of  the  reports  of  Admiral 
Porter. 

General  Whiting,  who  was  in  the  fort,  and  who  com- 
manded that  military  district,  says  the  slight  damage  done 
by  this  cannonading  was  repaired  at  night,  and  that  "the 
garrison  was  in  no  instance  driven  from  its  guns,  the  palisade 
was  in  perfect  order,  and  the  mines  the  same,  the  wires  not 
having  been  cut." 

General  Weitzel  testified  before  the  Committee  on  the 


6  THE  CAPTURE  OF  FORT  FISHER 

Conduct  of  the  War:  " I  made  a  reconnoissance  of  the  fort 
and  saw  that  the  work,  as  a  defensive  work,  was  not  injured 
at  all,  except  that  one  gun  about  midway  of  the  land-face 
was  dismounted.  I  did  not  see  a  single  opening  in  the  row  of 
palisades  that  was  in  front  of  the  ditch ;  it  seemed  to  be  per- 
fectly intact."  All  in  the  fort  agree  that  Admiral  Porter 
was  mistaken  as  to  the  effects  of  the  cannonading. 

So  much  as  to  the  condition  of  the  fort. 

On  the  morning  of  the  25th  all  our  transports  anchored 
near  the  shore  some  two  or  three  miles  north  of  the  fort,  and 
the  troops  immediately  began  to  land. 

I  had  been  selected  to  storm  the  fort  with  my  division. 

My  report  on  December  28th  is  as  follows: 

"  Brevet  Brig.  Gen.  Curtis  and  500  of  his  brigade  were  the 
first  to  land,  and  were  taken  towards  the  fort  by  Gen  Weitzel 
for  a  reconnoissance.  ...  It  was  dusk  when  I  reached  the 
front.  I  then  heard  that  the  First  Brigade  was  to  remain  where 
it  was  until  further  orders,  and  that  if  any  attack  was  made  the 
responsibility  would  rest  with  the  officer  in  immediate  command. 
At  this  time  I  did  not  know  that  it  had  been  decided  not  to 
attack  the  fort.  Upon  the  report  of  Curtis  that  he  could  take 
the  fort  I  sent  his  brigade  forward  to  make  the  attempt." 

In  his  report  Curtis  says : 

"  On  my  arrival  at  this  point  I  received  orders  from  Gen.  Ames 
to  return  and  re-establish  my  lines  as  they  were,  and,  if  possible, 
to  occupy  the  fort,  and  I  at  once  ordered  my  skirmishers  forward, 
etc.  .  .  .  The  enemy,  having  cover  of  the  darkness,  opened 
on  the  skirmishers  as  they  advanced  with  musketry  and  canister, 
but  did  not  prevent  their  establishing  the  line  in  its  former 
position,  with  the  reserves  in  close  proximity." 

Curtis  made  no  further  effort  to  take  the  fort,  as  I  had 
ordered  him  to  do,  but  sent  word  to  me  that  he  was  "  occupy- 
ing his  former  position."  Why  he  failed  to  assault  the 
fort  after  I  assumed  the  responsibility  and  gave  the  order 
I  have  never  known.  At  this  time  an  order  reached  me 
to  return  to  our  ships,  which  we  did,  and  the  first  expedition 
ended. 


THE  CAPTURE  OF  FORT  FISHER  7 

An  incident  occurred  which  had  much  to  do  in  giving  an 
erroneous  idea  of  the  condition  of  the  fort  and  garrison. 

One  of  our  lieutenants  approached  the  fort  and  captured 
its  flag,  which  had  been  shot  away  by  the  Navy,  and  which 
had  fallen  with  the  flagstaff  on  the  outer  slope  of  the  parapet 
to  the  ditch. 

On  this  point  General  Weitzel  testifies : 

"  I  sent  for  Lieut.  Walling  and  questioned  him  about  it,  and 
he  told  me  that  a  shell  had  knocked  the  flagstaff  outside  and  on 
top  of  the  parapet,  and  the  flag  hung  over  into  or  outside  of 
the  ditch.  Thinking  that  probably  the  rebels  had  not  observed 
it,  he  crept  up  on  his  hands  and  knees  to  the  palisading,  found 
a  hole  in  it  that  one  of  the  shells  had  made,  crept  through  the 
hole  and  up  to  the  flag,  and  got  it  and  got  away  with  it  without 
being  observed." 

Let  us  see  why  our  expedition  terminated  thus  abruptly. 

Weitzel  had  been  ordered  by  Butler  to  land  and  make  a 
reconnoissance.  In  his  testimony  before  the  Committee 
on  the  Conduct  of  the  War  he  gave  his  experience  during 
the  war  in  charging  and  defending  field  works,  and  con- 
tinuing, said: 

"  After  that  experience,  with  the  information  I  had  obtained 
from  reading  and  study — for  before  this  war  I  was  an  instructor 
at  the  Military  Academy  for  three  years  under  Professor  Mahan, 
on  those  very  subjects — remembering  well  the  remarks  of  the 
Lieutenant- General  commanding,  that  it  was  his  intention  I 
should  command  that  expedition,  because  another  officer  se- 
lected by  the  War  Department  had  once  shown  timidity,  and  in 
face  of  the  fact  that  I  had  been  appointed  a  Major- General  only 
twenty  days  before,  and  needed  confirmation;  notwithstanding 
all  this,  I  went  back  to  Gen.  Butler,  and  told  him  I  considered  it 
would  be  murder  to  order  an  attack  on  that  work  with  that  force." 

Colonel  Lamb  says,  in  reference  to  the  loss  of  his  flag : 

"  I  had  no  fear  of  an  assault,  and  because,  during  a  bombard- 
ment which  rendered  an  assault  impossible,  I  covered  my  men, 
and  a  few  straggling  skirmishers,  too  few  to  attract  attention, 
got  near  the  fort,  and  some  gallant  officers  thought  they  could 


<r 


8  THE  CAPTURE  OF  FORT  FISHER 

have  carried  the  work,  it  does  not  follow  that  they  would  not 
have  paid  dearly  for  their  temerity  if  they  had  made  the  attempt." 

General  Whiting  speaks  to  the  same  effect. 

Now,  who  is  to  say  that  Weitzel,  Whiting,  and  Lamb 
were  mistaken  as  to  the  situation  that  day  ?  Is  it  the  brave 
soldier,  who  crept  unseen  through  a  hole  in  the  palisade  to 
the  parapet  and  took  a  flag  from  a  staff  which  had  been 
shot  away? 

Is  it  Admiral  Porter,  who  wrote  to  the  Secretary  o"  the. 
Navy  January  17,  1865 : 

"  I  have  since  visited  Fort  Fisher  and  the  adjoining  works, 
and  find  their  strength  greatly  beyond  what  I  had  conceived. 
An  engineer  might  be  excusable  in  saying  they  could  not  be 
captured  except  by  regular  siege.  I  wonder,  even  now,  how  it 
was  done.  The  work,  as  I  said  before,  is  really  stronger  than  the 
Malakoff  tower,  which  defied  so  long  the  combined  power  of 
France  and  England." 

In  a  letter  of  the  16th  of  January  to  the  Secretary  of 
the  Navy,  he  says:  "I  was  in  Fort  Malakoff  a  few  days 
after  it  surrendered  to  the  French  and  English;  the  com- 
bined armies  oc  the  two  nations  were  many  months  capturing 
that  stronghold,  and  it  won't  compare,  either  in  size  or 
strength,  to  Fort  Fisher." 

I  have  no  hesitancy  in  saying  that  they  were  not  mis- 
taken, though  it  is  true  that  without  personal  knowledge 
of  the  character  of  the  fort,  and,  for  the  time,  believing 
Curtis,  I  ordered  him  to  take  it  on  his  assertion  that  he  could 
do  so. 

What  was  not  possible  December  25th,  was  made 
possible  January  15th,  through  an  efficient  bombardment 
on  the  part  of  the  Navy  and  the  co-operation  of  2000  sailors 
and  marines  and  an  additional  force  of  1400  infantry. 

January  1,  1865,  Grant  wrote  to  Secretary  Stanton: 
"The  fact  is,  there  are  but  two  ways  of  taking  Fort  Fisher, 
operating  from  the  water:  one  to  surprise  them  whilst  there 
is  but  a  small  garrison  defending  the  place;  the  other  is 
for  the  Navy  to  send  a  portion  of  their  fleet  into  Cape  Fear 


THE  CAPTURE  OF  FORT  FISHER  9 

River.  .  .  ."  He  continues:  "In  the  three  days  of 
good  weather  which  elapsed  after  the  Army  had  reached 
the  scene  of  action,  before  the  Navy  appeared,  our  troops  had 
the  chance  of  capturing  Fort  Fisher  whilst  it  had  an  insuffi- 
cient garrison  to  hold  it.  The  delay  gave  the  enemy  time  to 
accumulate  a  force,  .  .  .  The  failure  before  was  the 
result  of  delays  by  the  Navy." 

So,  of  Grant's  two  ways  of  taking  the  fort,  one,  by  sur- 
prise, failed,  as  he  said,  because  of  the  delay  of  the  Navy, 
and  as  to  the  other,  Colonel  Comstock  reports  to  Grant, 
January  9th:  "There  is  no  hope,  at  least  at  present,  of  the 
Admiral's  trying  to  run  by  Fort  Fisher." 

Grant  ordered  and  intended  that  Weitzel  should  have 
command  of  the  expedition.  North  Carolina  was  in  Butler's 
military  department.  His  order  retained  Weitzel  as  his 
subordinate. 

Though  Grant  may  have  intended  and  ordered  certain 
action  on  the  part  of  our  expedition  in  December,  1864, 
on  the  first  of  January,  1865,  he  wrote  the  Secretary  of  War, 
as  just  quoted,  that  there  were  but  two  ways  to  take 
the  fort — by  surprise  or  by  the  occupancy  of  the  river  by 
the  Navy.  There  was  no  surprise,  the  Navy  was  not  in  the 
river,  the  bombardment  of  the  fort  was  ineffectual,  Weitzel 
decided  against  an  assault,  Butler  acquiesced  and  ordered 
the  expedition  back  to  Virginia,  saying  to  Weitzel  at  the 
same  time  that  he,  Butler,  would  assume  all  responsibility, 
as  he  could  stand  the  blame  better  than  could  Weitzel,  the 
professional  soldier. 

The  Committee  on  the  Conduct  of  the  War  was  composed 
of  the  leading  men  in  Congress  at  that  time.  Much  experi- 
ence in  the  investigation  of  military  affairs  had  made  them, 
to  say  the  least,  fairly  capable  judges.  They  could  command 
any  witness,  they  were  critical  and  severe  in  their  examina- 
tions, and  their  conclusions  were  reached  without  fear  or 
favor.  Honest  Ben  Wade  was  their  Chairman.  This  is 
their  decision : 

"In  conclusion,  your  Committee  would  say,  from  all 
the   testimony    before   them,    that   the    determination    of 


IO  THE  CAPTURE  OF  FORT  FISHER 

General  Butler  not  to  assault  the  fort  seems  to  have  been 
fully  justified  by  all  facts  and  circumstances  then  known  or 
afterwards  ascertained . ' ' 

Few  can  comprehend  the  penalty  General  Butler  had  to 
pay  for  his  action  on  this  occasion.  The  war  was  within  a 
few  months  of  its  end,  and  he  had  hoped  for  a  share  of 
the  honors  conferred  on  those  who  served  faithfully  and 
well,  but  he  was  sent  home,  and  the  whole  nation  condemned 
him  for  the  failure.  General  Weitzel,  one  of  the  best  of 
men,  and  one  of  our  ablest  generals,  was  humbled  in  spirit 
before  the  storm  of  censure  and  ridicule.  But  all  that 
came  after  the  capture  of  the  fort  on  our  second  expedition. 

The  second  expedition  was  started  without  delay. 
January  2,  1865,  Gen.  A.  H.  Terry  was  put  in  command. 
On  the  3d  we  left  camp,  began  re-embarkation  on  the  4th, 
and  completed  it  on  the  5th. 

I  had  3300  picked  men  in  my  division.  General  Paine 
had  the  same  number  in  his.  There  were  added  a  brigade 
of  1400  men  under  Col.  J.  G.  Abbott  and  two  batteries  of 
light  artillery  of  three  and  six  guns  each.  Colonel  Corn- 
stock,  who  represented  Grant  on  our  first  expedition, 
returned  with  us  on  the  second. 

The  transports  put  to  sea  on  the  morning  of  the  6th. 
A  severe  storm  drove  them  into  Beaufort. 

The  troops  were  landed  on  the  13th,  some  two  miles  north 
of  the  fort. 

Upon  landing,  the  first  work  on  hand  was  to  establish 
a  line  of  breastworks  from  the  ocean  beach  to  the  river  to 
keep  the  enemy  in  the  direction  of  Wilmington  from  inter- 
fering with  our  operations. 

A  reconnoissance  was  made.     Terry  reports: 

"  As  a  result  of  this  reconnoissance,  and  in  view  of  the  extreme 
difficulty  which  might  be  expected  in  landing  supplies  and  the 
materials  for  a  siege  on  the  often  tempestuous  beach,  it  was 
decided  to  attempt  an  assault  the  next  day,  provided  that,  in 
the  mean  time,  the  fire  of  the  Navy  should  so  far  destroy  the 
palisades  as  to  make  one  practicable.  This  decision  was  com- 
municated to  Admiral  Porter,  who  at  once  placed  a  division  of 


THE  CAPTURE  OF  FORT  FISHER  II 

his  vessels  in  a  position  to  accomplish  this  last-named  object, 
It  was  arranged,  in  consultation  with  him,  that  a  heavy  bom- 
bardment from  all  the  vessels  should  commence  early  in  the 
morning  and  continue  up  to  the  moment  of  the  assault,  and  that 
even  then  it  should  not  cease,  but  should  be  diverted  from  the 
points  of  attack  to  the  other  parts  of  the  work.  It  was  decided 
that  the  assault  should  be  made  at  3  p.m.,  that  the  army  should 
attack  on  the  western  half  of  the  land-face,  and  that  a  column 
of  sailors  and  marines  should  assault  the  northeast  bastion. 
The  fire  of  the  Navy  continued  during  the  night.  At  8  a.m.  of 
the  13th  all  of  the  vessels,  except  a  division  left  to  aid  in  the 
defence  of  our  northern  line,  moved  into  position,  and  a  fire, 
magnificent  alike  for  its  power  and  accuracy,  was  opened," 

and  continued  all  day  Saturday,  Saturday  night,  and  Sunday, 
till  3.30  p.  m.  "Ames's  division  had  been  selected  for  the 
assault.  .  .  .  At  3.25  p.  m.  all  the  preparations  were 
completed,  the  order  to  move  forward  was  given  to  Ames, 
and  a  concerted  signal  was  made  to  Admiral  Porter  to  change 
the  direction  of  his  fire." 

The  situation  at  this  time  was  as  follows:  Some  two 
miles  north  of  the  fort  General  Paine  had  established  a 
line  of  breastworks,  from  ocean  to  river,  facing  north, 
with  his  own  division  on  the  left  and  Colonel  Abbott's 
brigade  on  the  right.  On  the  sea  beach,  about  half  a  mile 
from  the  fort,  were  2000  sailors  and  marines  under  command 
of  Fleet  Capt.  K.  R.  Breese.  On  the  east  were  sixty-four 
ships  of  war,  under  Admiral  Porter,  cannonading  the  fort. 
My  three  brigades  were  in  line,  one  behind  the  other,  ranging 
from  three  to  five  hundred  yards  from  the  fort;  the  left 
of  each  line  nearly  opposite  the  middle  of  the  land-face 
of  the  fort,  the  right  near  the  river.  A  body  of  sharp- 
shooters were  pushed  forward,  and  the  whole  division  was 
covered  from  the  fire  of  the  enemy,  as  far  as  possible,  by 
the  inequalities  of  the  ground  and  slight  pits  formed  by 
throwing  up  the  sand. 

Terry,  Comstock,  and  I  were  in  a  small  advanced  outwork 
about  half  a  mile  from  the  fort.  My  able  and  gallant 
Adjutant-General,  Gen.  Chas.  A.  Carleton,  has  made  the 
following  record:     "General  Terry  turned  to  General  Ames 


12  THE  CAPTURE  OF  FORT  FISHER 

and  said:  'General  Ames,  the  signal  agreed  upon  for  the 
assault  has  been  given.'  General  Ames  asked :  'Have  you 
any  special  orders  to  give?'  General  Terry  replied:  'No, 
you  understand  the  situation  and  what  is  desired  to  be 
accomplished.  I  leave  everything  to  your  discretion.'" 
Thus  was  given  me  the  unrestricted  command  of  the  fighting 
forces. 

At  once  I  directed  Captain  Lawrence  of  my  staff  to 
order  Curtis,  commanding  the  First  Brigade,  to  charge, 
striking  the  parapet  at  the  end  nearest  the  river.  The 
palisade  had  been  sufficiently  broken  and  shot  away  by 
the  fire  of  the  Navy  to  permit  the  passage  of  the  troops. 
As  I  approached  the  fort  I  watched  with  anxious  eyes  the 
charge  of  the  First  Brigade. 

Captain  Lawrence  heroically  led  the  charge  of  that  part 
of  the  brigade  which  advanced  at  this  time.  He  was 
the  first  through  the  palisade,  and  while  reaching  for  a 
guidon  to  plant  on  the  first  traverse,  his  hand  was  shot 
away  and  he  was  dangerously  wounded  in  the  neck,  but 
with  this  lodgment  on  the  first  traverse,  the  force  of  the 
charge  was  spent.  I  quickly  ordered  Colonel  Pennypacker's 
brigade,  which  was  close  at  hand,  to  charge  and  sweep  down 
the  parapet  to  the  ocean. 

I  will  not  attempt  a  description  of  the  battle.  It  was  a 
charge  of  my  brigades,  one  after  the  other,  followed  by 
desperate  fighting  at  close  quarters  over  the  parapet  and 
traverses  and  in  and  through  the  covered  ways.  All  the 
time  we  were  exposed  to  the  musketry  and  artillery  of  the 
enemy,  while  our  own  Navy  was  thundering  away,  occa- 
sionally making  us  the  victims  of  its  fire. 

The  official  reports  of  my  officers  give  no  adequate  idea 
of  their  gallant  deeds,  but  they  must  supply  the  form  and 
coloring  of  the  warlike  scenes  of  that  eventful  Sunday. 

Colonel  Daggett,  in  command  of  the  First  Brigade, 
January  17th,  reports: 

"At  about  3  p.m.,  General  Curtis  having  received  orders  to 
that  effect  from  Gen.  Ames,  through  Capt.  Lawrence,  the  brigade 
advanced  to  the  charge,  so  as  to  strike  the  sally-port,  that  having 


THE  CAPTURE  OF  FORT  FISHER  1 3 

been  deemed  the  only  vulnerable  point  of  the  work,  and,  after 
a  desperate  struggle,  the  advance  of  the  brigade  reached  the 
parapet  of  the  fort  and  scaled  it  to  the  first  traverse,  where  the 
guidon  of  the  117th  New  York  was  planted — the  first  colors 
on  the  fort." 

Major  0.  P.  Harding,  who  came  out  of  the  fight  in 
command  of  the  Second  Brigade,  reports : 

' '  The  brigade  was  ordered  to  assault  the  fort,  which  was  done  in 
a  gallant  manner  and  under  a  heavy  fire  of  grape  and  musketry, 
and  entered  the  fort  through  a  sally-port  near  the  river.  The 
203d  Pennsylvania,  commanded  by  Col.  J.  W.  Moore,  was  the 
first  to  enter  the  fort,  closely  followed  by  the  97th  Pennsylvania, 
commanded  by  First  Lieutenant  John  Wainwright.  The  colors 
of  each  of  those  regiments  reached  the  parapet  about  the  same 
time,  those  of  the  97th  borne  by  Col.  Pennypacker,  and  of  the 
203d  by  Col.  Moore.  Col.  Pennypacker  was  seriously  wounded 
while  planting  his  colors  on  the  third  traverse,  and  Col.  Moore 
fell  dead  while  passing  the  second  traverse,  waving  his  colors  and 
commanding  his  men  to  follow.  After  entering  the  fort  the 
brigade  became  somewhat  broken  up;  nevertheless,  both  officers 
and  men  behaved  gallantly  until  its  capture. 

"  After  the  fall  of  Lieut.  Col.  Lyman,  203d  Pennsylvania,  who 
fell  on  the  sixth  traverse,  I  commanded  the  regiment  until  about 
5  p.m.,  when  ordered  by  General  Ames  to  take  command  of  the 
brigade,  which  I  immediately  organized." 

Capt.  H.  B.  Essington,  commanding  203d  Pennsylvania, 
reports : 

"  The  regiment  charged  on  the  right  of  the  Second  Brigade, 
and  was  the  first  regiment  of  the  brigade  to  enter  the  fort,  going 
in  with  the  First  (Curtis's)  Brigade.  After  having  assisted  in 
capturing  the  first  two  mounds,  a  portion  of  the  regiment  went 
to  the  right  and  stationed  themselves  behind  a  bank  in  the  open 
field  south  of  the  fort.  The  latter  portion  then  charged  across 
the  plain,  by  order  of  the  commanding  general  (Gen.  Ames), 
until  opposite  the  seventh  or  eighth  traverse,  where  they  threw 
up  an  embankment  with  their  tin  plates  and  shovels,  which  they 
held  until  the  fort  surrendered,  keeping  up  a  steady  fire  on  the 
enemy." 


14  THE  CAPTURE  OF  FORT  FISHER 

Let  me  say,  in  passing,  that  Colonel  Pennypacker's 
conduct  in  leading  his  brigade  with  the  colors  of  his  own 
regiment  placed  him  second  to  none  for  gallantry  that 
day.  It  would  be  difficult  to  overestimate  the  value  of 
his  example  to  his  brigade. 

Entering  the  fort  and  passing  to  the  rear  of  the  parapet 
at  the  west  end,  I  made  an  examination  of  it  from  that 
position,  and  decided  to  use  my  third  brigade,  Colonel  Bell's, 
with  its  left  by  the  parapet,  right  extended  south  and 
west  inside  the  fort,  and  charge  into  the  angle  formed  by 
the  land-  and  sea-faces.  I  ordered  Bell  forward  with  his 
brigade  to  report  to  me.  Lieutenant -Colonel  Johnson, 
commanding  the  Third  Brigade,  January  19th,  reports: 
"Colonel  Bell  was  ordered  by  General  Ames  to  remain  near 
him  for  the  purpose  of  receiving  orders."  Unfortunately 
Colonel  Bell  was  killed  in  the  advance,  gallantly  leading  his 
brigade.  The  part  of  his  brigade  which  reached  me  was 
in  a  somewhat  disorganized  condition.  I  formed  it  as 
best  I  could  for  the  charge.  Owing  to  the  obstructions 
of  the  demolished  quarters  of  the  garrison  and  the  fire  of 
the  enemy  from  the  front  (the  angle  had  been  partially 
filled  in  and  was  protected  by  a  curtain)  and  from  the 
right,  as  well  as  the  fire  of  our  Navy,  the  advance  was 
checked.  The  men  were  in  a  very  exposed  position,  and 
as  no  advantage  could  be  gained  there  I  ordered  them  to 
join  the  other  troops  in  pushing  seaward  on  the  land-face 
of  the  fort.  Lieutenant-Colonel  Johnson  further  reports: 
"The  brigade  entered  the  fort  conjointly  with  a  portion  of 
the  First  (Curtis's)  Brigade,  at  the  left  bastion,  a  portion 
moving  along  the  terre-plain  and  a  portion  on  the  ramparts, 
parapets,  and  slopes,  some  of  the  officers  and  men  in  the 
advance  with  officers  and  men  of  other  brigades,  all  vying 
with  each  other." 

Owing  to  the  contracted  space  in  which  the  fighting  was 
done,  brigade  and  regimental  formations  were  impossible. 
What  was  accomplished  was  through  the  heroic  efforts  of 
small  bodies  of  officers  and  men. 

From  time  to  time  I  sent  to  Terry,  who  was  in  the  earth- 


THE  CAPTURE  OF  FORT  FISHER  1 5 

work  half  a  mile  away,  reports  of  the  progress  I  was 
making. 

I  had  previously  learned  that  the  sailors  and  marines 
who  had  made  an  attack  on  the  sea  angle  had  been  quickly 
repulsed. 

As  the  sun  sank  to  the  horizon,  the  ardor  of  the  assault 
abated.  Our  advance  was  but  slow.  Ten  of  my  officers 
had  been  killed,  forty-seven  wounded,  and  about  500  men 
were  killed  and  wounded.  Among  the  killed  was  one 
brigade  commander,  the  other  two  were  wounded  and 
disabled.  I  now  requested  Terry  to  join  me  in  the  fort. 
It  was  dark  before  he  and  Comstock  arrived.  I  explained 
the  situation. 

Colonel  Abbott's  brigade,  which  had  been  relieved  from 
its  position  in  the  line  facing  Wilmington,  by  the  defeated 
sailors  and  marines,  had  been  ordered  to  report  to  me. 

I  decided  to  make  my  chief  effort  with  the  re-enforce- 
ments by  moving  the  troops  by  the  flank  between  the 
palisade  and  the  foot  of  the  fort  until  the  head  of  the 
column  should  reach  the  northeast  angle  by  the  ocean, 
then  face  to  the  right  and  rush  the  men  up  and  over  the 
parapet;  and  at  the  same  time  continue  the  struggle  for 
the  traverses.  Col.  J.  C.  Abbott,  commanding  Second 
Brigade,  1st  Division,  in  his  report  of  January  15th,  says: 

"  Reaching  the  fort  about  dark  I  reported  to  Gen.  Ames.  By 
order  of  Gen.  Ames  I  first  threw  the  3d  New  Hampshire  Volun- 
teers, Capt.  Trickey  commanding,  along  the  portion  of  the  north 
face  of  the  work  already  occupied  by  his  troops  and  relieved 
them ;  also  by  Gen.  Ames's  order,  I  threw  out  the  7th  Connecticut 
Volunteers,  Capt.  Marble  commanding,  as  a  picket  in  rear  of 
the  work,  the  right  of  the  line  resting  on  Cape  Fear  River.  Dur- 
ing this  time  the  enemy  occupied  all  the  eastern  and  about  one- 
third  the  northern  face  of  the  work.  At  about  9  o'clock,  by  order 
of  Gen.  Ames,  I  then  proceeded  to  dislodge  the  enemy  from  the 
remainder  of  the  fort.  I  then  advanced  the  7th  New  Hamp- 
shire, Lieut.  Col.  Rollins  commanding.  They  at  once  and 
gallantly  charged  up  the  slope  enveloping  the  sea  angle  of  the 
work,  meeting  a  sharp  fire  from  the  enemy,  who  were  stationed 
behind  the  parapets,  and  in  rear  of  the  main  work." 


1 6  THE  CAPTURE  OP  FORT  FISHER 

Captain  William  H.  Trickey,  commanding  3d  New 
Hampshire  Regiment,  reports  January  18th: 

"  I  was  directed  by  Col.  Abbott,  commanding  Brigade,  to 
move  my  regiment  to  the  extreme  advance  held  by  the  second 
division  and  open  fire  upon  the  enemy;  was  thus  engaged  for 
nearly  an  hour,  having,  to  a  great  extent,  silenced  the  enemy's  fire, 
was  then  directed  by  Col.  Abbott  to  take  and  hold,  with  twenty 
men,  the  next  traverse  in  front,  the  remainder  of  my  command 
being  left  in  several  traverses  to  keep  up  the  fire  upon  the  enemy. 
We  took  the  traverse,  as  directed,  driving  the  enemy  out. 
Thinking  we  could  go  farther,  we  charged  and  took  the  next  two, 
with  a  like  result.  After  taking  the  third  traverse,  having  met 
with  considerable  resistance,  I  did  not  deem  it  prudent  to  go 
farther  with  so  few  men,  and  opened  a  vigorous  fire  upon  the 
enemy,  who  was  rallying  for  the  recapture  of  the  traverses; 
we  held  the  enemy  in  check  until  the  arrival  of  the  7  th  New 
Hampshire  and  6th  Connecticut,  who  charged  and  took  the 
remainder  of  the  work." 

Lieutenant  Colonel  Rollins  reports : 

"At  10  p.m.  moved  my  regiment  inside  the  fort,  and  was  ordered 
by  Gen.  Ames  to  take  two  traverses,  and  three,  if  possible,  the 
number  not  then  taken.  I  moved  over  the  third  traverse  of  the 
fort,  and  advanced  rapidly  inside  the  stockade  until  I  reached 
the  battery  on  the  northeast  angle  of  the  fort,  where  I  formed 
the  right  wing  of  the  regiment,  leaving  the  left  in  support.  I 
then  ordered  a  charge  and  captured  the  three  remaining  traverses 
and  batteries,  then  pushed  on  by  the  right  flank,  and  by  so 
doing  cut  off  the  angle  of  the  fort,  moved  to  the  right,  and,  by  a 
rapid  and  determined  advance,  captured  the  remaining  traverses 
and  batteries  of  the  fort  proper." 

Thus,  after  some  seven  hours'  fighting,  more  than  five 
of  which  were  after  dark,  the  land-face  of  the  fort  was 
occupied  and  all  resistance  ceased.  The  enemy  tied  to 
the  shelter  of  Battery  Buchanan,  at  the  end  of  the  point, 
two  miles  away.  Terry  took  Abbott  and  a  part  of  his 
brigade  and  marched  to  Battery  Buchanan.  Abbott 
reports:  "I  was  met  by  the  Adjutant-General  of  the  Gen- 
eral  commanding  the   enemy's  forces,   who  tendered  the 


THE  CAPTURE  OF  FORT  FISHER  1 7 

surrender  of  the  battery,  upon  which  I  referred  to  General 
Terry,  who  would  soon  arrive.  .  .  .  General  Terry 
having  arrived,  received  the  surrender  of  the  work  and  the 
force." 

Colonel  Abbott  was  mistaken.  Terry  was  too  late. 
Captain  Lockwood  of  my  staff  had  already  received  the 
surrender. 

It  was  after  ten  o'clock.  The  task  set  for  us  at  half- 
past  three  was  finished.     Our  work  was  done. 

The  statement  of  their  achievement  is  the  highest  eulogy 
that  can  be  passed  upon  our  soldiers. 

A  grievous  accident  occurred  early  the  next  morning, 
which  killed  and  wounded  one  hundred  and  thirty  of  our 
gallant  heroes.  It  was  the  explosion  of  the  magazine  of 
the  fort.      A  board  of  enquiry  was  organized  and  found 

"  that  the  following  are  the  main  facts,  viz. :  i,  immediately  after 
the  capture  of  the  fort,  Gen.  Ames  gave  orders  to  Lieut.  Col. 
Samuel  M.  Zent  to  place  guards  on  all  the  magazines  and  bomb- 
proofs.  2,  Lieut.  Col.  Zent  commenced  on  the  northwest  corner 
of  the  fort,  next  the  river,  following  the  traverses  round,  and 
placed  guards  on  thirty-one  entrances  under  the  traverses.  The 
main  magazine,  which  afterwards  exploded,  being  in  the  rear 
of  the  traverses,  escaped  his  notice,  and,  consequently,  had  no 
guards  from  his  regiment  or  any  other." 

General  Bragg  reports  that  the  defenders  of  the  fort 
numbered,  all  told,  about  no  commissioned  officers  and 
2500  men — their  casualties  being  over  400.  A  few  escaped 
across  the  river,  in  boats,  under  cover  of  the  darkness;  the 
rest  became  our  prisoners. 

Mr.  Stanton,  the  Secretary  of  War,  had  been  visiting 
Sherman  at  Savannah  after  his  march  through  Georgia, 
and  on  his  way  north  called  at  Fort  Fisher,  where  he  had 
an  interview  with  Terry. 

LTpon  Stanton's  arrival  at  Fortress  Monroe,  Va.,  he 
sent  a  dispatch  to  President  Lincoln  marked  "official," 
dated  Tuesday,  ioa.m.,  January  17,  1865.  In  this  dispatch 
Stanton  mentions  Terry,  my  brigade  commanders,  and  some 


15  THE  CAPTURE  OF  FORT  FISHER 

regimental  commanders,  but  omits  my  name  altogether. 
Among  other  things  he  says:  "The  assault  on  the  other 
and  most  difficult  side  of  the  fort  was  made  by  a  column 
of  3000  troops  of  the  old  Tenth  Corps,  led  by  Colonel  Curtis, 
under  the  immediate  supervision  of  General  Terry." 

This  is  not  true,  as  the  official  reports  show,  in  any  other 
sense  than  that  Curtis's  brigade  first  reached  the  fort  under 
my  immediate  orders,  with  Terry  half  a  mile  away.  An 
earlier  attempt  to  make  public  these  facts  has  been  imprac- 
ticable, as  the  volume  of  the  War  Records  covering  this 
event  was  not  published  till  1894. 

With  this  as  a  preface  I  will  add  to  the  extracts  of  the 
reports  of  some  of  my  subordinate  officers  already  given, 
the  report  of  General  Terry,  who  was  my  only  superior 
officer.  He  says:  "Of  General  Ames  I  have  already 
spoken  in  a  letter  recommending  his  promotion.  He 
commanded  all  the  troops  engaged  and  was  constantly 
under  fire.  His  great  coolness,  good  judgment,  and  skill 
were  never  more  conspicuous  than  in  this  assault." 

These  official  reports  show,  as  Terry  says,  that  I  "com- 
manded all  the  troops  engaged"  from  the  first  act,  when 
my  aide,  Capt.  A.  G.  Lawrence,  led  the  first  brigade  into 
the  fort,  to  the  last  act,  when  the  garrison  surrendered  to 
my  aide,  Capt.  H.  C.  Lockwood. 

The  sailors  and  marines  wTho  assaulted  in  column  the 
northeast  angle  of  the  fort  along  the  sea  beach  were  a  body 
of  2000  men,  made  up  of  detachments  from  different  ships. 
Naturally  enough,  Captain  Breese  found  it,  as  has  been 
stated,  an  unwieldy  mass.  The  1600  sailors  were  armed 
only  with  pistols  and  cutlasses.  They  were  quickly  repulsed. 
Few  reached  the  parapet.  Once  checked,  they  turned  and 
fled,  losing  300  in  killed  and  wounded.  Admiral  Porter 
testified:  "I  suppose  the  whole  thing  was  over  in  fifteen 
minutes,  as  far  as  the  sailors  were  concerned,  for  they  were 
cut  down  like  sheep." 

Later,  this  force  was  sent  to  the  line  of  entrenchments 
facing  Wilmington,  relieving  Colonel  Abbott's  brigade, 
which  reported  to  me.     Of  course  Admiral  Porter  expected 


THE  CAPTURE  OF  FORT  FISHER  19 

his  sailors  to  carry  the  fort,  but,  alas!  he  had  been  deceived 
as  to  its  defensive  capabilities,  which  deception  resulted 
in  the  apparently  needless  sacrifice  of  his  gallant  sailors. 

Our  Navy,  in  its  ships  and  armament,  was  the  most 
powerful  that  ever  existed  up  to  that  time.  In  officers  and 
men  it  never  had  its  equal,  and  never  will  till  an  equally 
enlightened,  powerful,  and  liberty-loving  people  again  rise, 
in  their  might,  in  a  struggle  for  self-preservation. 

As  to  the  effect  on  the  fort  of  the  second  bombardment, 
Colonel  Lamb  writes : 

"  The  land  armament,  with  palisades  and  torpedoes,  had  been 
destroyed.  For  the  first  time  in  the  history  of  sieges  the  land 
defences  of  the  works  were  destroyed,  not  by  the  act  of  the 
besieging  army,  but  by  the  concentrated  fire,  direct  and  enfilad- 
ing, of  an  immense  fleet,  poured  upon  them  without  intermission, 
until  torpedo  wires  were  cut,  palisades  breached  so  that  they 
actually  afforded  cover  for  assailants,  and  the  slopes  of  the  work 
were  rendered  practicable  for  assault." 

Why  the  first  expedition  was  a  failure  and  the  second 
a  success  has  never  been  rightly  understood.  The  military 
situations  have  been  obscured  by  the  contention  between 
General  Butler  and  Admiral  Porter,  though  the  most 
amicable  relations  existed  between  the  Army  and  Navy. 

It  has  been  believed  that  the  fort  was  in  the  same  condi- 
tion on  both  occasions,  and  that  it  was  but  poorly  garrisoned 
on  the  first.  Those  who  so  held  were  in  error  in  both 
particulars. 

According  to  Badeau,  Grant's  historian:  "Curtis 
declared  that  the  fort  could  have  been  carried  on  the  first 
expedition,  and  that  at  the  moment  when  they  were  recalled 
they  virtually  had  possession."  This  declaration  has  been 
accepted  as  the  truth. 

We  can  examine  the  facts,  now  that  the  official  reports 
have  been  published,  and  form  our  own  opinions  on  this 
point,  which  has  been  the  pivot  of  the  whole  controversy. 

It  appears  from  Curtis's  report  that  he  had  "  pushed  the 
right  of  his  skirmishers  to  within  75  paces  of  the  fort  and 
had  sent  back  to  his  reserves  for  200  men  with  which  to 


20  THE  CAPTURE  OF  FORT  FISHER 

possess  the  fort,  but  his  messenger  was  there  informed 
that  orders  from  the  department  commander  bade  him 
retire,"  which  he  did. 

Let  us  see  what  these  200  men  would  have  had  to  do  to 
make  what  Curtis  calls  a  "virtual,"  an  actual  possession 
of  the  fort. 

Colonel  Lamb  had  a  force  of  1400  men,  900  of  whom 
were  veterans.  Whiting,  Lamb,  and  other  officers  commend 
the  discipline,  skill,  and  gallantry  of  the  garrison.  I  will 
not  take  time  to  quote  from  their  reports.  They  all  show 
that  the  officers  of  the  fort  were  keenly  alive  to  our  move- 
ments. Colonel  Lamb  states  that  he  intentionally  kept 
his  men  hidden  from  view.  He  was  perfectly  familiar 
with  the  surroundings,  both  within  and  without  the  fort. 

Now,  the  one  question  to  decide  is,  could  those  200 
men,  sent  for  by  Curtis,  have  taken  possession  of  that  pali- 
saded Malakoff  fortress,  with  its  garrison  of  1400  men? 

Lieutenant  Colonel  Barney,  who  commanded  our  forces 
behind  the  picket  line,  nowhere  intimates  that  we  had  any 
kind  of  possession  of  the  fort. 

Even  Curtis  reports,  officially,  that  his  skirmishers  were 
met  with  musketry  and  canister,  and  that  he  retired  under 
a  heavy  fire. 

In  making  a  decision,  Lamb's  report  must  not  be  over- 
looked.    He  reports: 

"  That  it  was  dark  at  5.30,  when  the  fleet  ceased  firing.  No 
assault  could  be  made  while  the  fleet  was  firing.  When  the 
firing  ceased,  the  parapets  (which  were  20  feet  high)  were  at 
once  manned  and  half  of  the  garrison  (700  men)  were  stationed 
outside  the  work  behind  the  palisade,  which  was  9  feet  high  and 
pierced  for  musketry." 

What  soldier  will  say  we  had  "virtual"  possession  of 
the  fort  under  such  circumstances? 

The  second  expedition  took  this  question  from  the  realm 
of  speculation. 

Three  weeks  after  the  first  attempt  we  were  back  again 
before  the  fort,  which,  because  of  the  efficient  bombardment 


THE  CAPTURE  OF  FORT  FISHER  21 

of  the  Navy,  was  far  less  capable  of  resistance.  A  column 
of  2000  sailors  and  marines  were  to  make  a  gallant  assault 
on  the  sea  angle  simultaneously  with  ours,  thereby  to  create 
a  diversion  greatly  to  our  advantage. 

Curtis  had  in  his  brigade,  now  forming  the  first  line,  more 
than  twice  as  many  men  as  he  had  before  the  fort  on  the 
first  expedition.  Again  I  gave  him  the  order  to  take  the 
fort.  Did  he  take  it?  No.  His  brigade,  led  by  Captain 
Lawrence,  made  a  lodgment  on  one  corner  of  it — a  lodgment 
so  uncertain  that  I  immediately  ordered  up  Colonel  Penny- 
packer's  brigade,  which,  inspired  and  led  by  him  and 
Colonel  Moore,  reached  the  third  traverse  and  made  our 
foothold  secure.     Such  are  the  official  records  of  the  battle. 

I  wish  to  touch  one  other  point.  Badeau  writes  in  this 
same  history : 

"  The  fighting  was  continued  from  traverse  to  traverse,  until 
at  9  o'clock  the  troops  had  nearly  reached  the  bastion.  Bell  had 
been  killed  and  Pennypacker  wounded,  and  Curtis  now  sent  back 
for  re-enforcements.  The  advance  party  was  in  imminent  peril, 
for  the  guns  from  both  bastions  and  the  mound  batteries  were 
turned  upon  them.  At  this  crisis  a  staff  officer  brought  orders 
from  Terry  to  stop  fighting  and  begin  intrenching.  Curtis  was 
inflamed  with  the  magnificent  rage  of  battle,  and  fairly  roared 
at  this  command:  "Then  we  shall  lose  whatever  we  have  gained. 
The  enemy  will  drive  us  from  here  in  the  morning. "  While  he 
spoke  he  was  struck  by  a  shell,  and  fell  senseless  to  the  earth. 
The  hero  of  Fort  Fisher  had  fallen,  and  the  fort  was  not  yet 
carried.  Ames,  who  was  near  him,  sent  an  officer  to  Terry  to 
report  that  Curtis  was  killed,  and  that  his  dying  request  was 
that  the  fighting  might  go  on.  It  was  also  Ames's  opinion  that 
the  battle  should  proceed.  Terry  caught  the  contagion,  and 
determined  to  continue  the  assault,  even  if  it  became  necessary 
to  abandon  the  line  of  defence  towards  Wilmington.  Abbott's 
re-enforcements  were  at  once  ordered  forward,  and  as  they  en- 
tered the  fort  the  rebels  on  the  bastion  gave  way  and  Fort  Fisher 
was  carried." 

It  is  due  to  Badeau  to  state  that  he  says  in  a  note  that 
he. "obtained  the  account  of  this  assault  from  a  paper 
written  by  an  aide-de-camp  to  General  Curtis." 


2  2  THE  CAPTURE  OF  FORT  FISHER 

This  remarkable  statement  deserves  a  moment's  con- 
sideration. If  it  be  true,  then  all  the  chief  honors  must 
fall  on  one  head.  But  it  is  not  true.  If  Terry  gave  orders 
to  stop  fighting  and  begin  intrenching,  who  can  believe 
that  it  was  through  the  "contagion  caught"  by  him  from 
Curtis  that  the  fight  continued,  or  that  he  would  "  abandon 
the  line  towards  Wilmington"  to  try  uncertainties  at  the 
fort? 

Terry  reports : 

"  When  Bell's  brigade  was  ordered  into  action  I  foresaw  that 
more  troops  would  probably  be  needed,  and  sent  an  order  for 
Abbott's  brigade  to  move  down  from  the  north  line,  at  the  same 
time  requesting  Captain  Breese  to  replace  them  with  his  sailors 
and  marines.  I  also  directed  General  Paine  to  send  me  one  of 
the  strongest  regiments  of  his  own  division;  these  troops  arrived 
at  dusk  and  reported  to  General  Ames." 

This  treatment  of  Terry  and  the  ignoring  of  division, 
brigade,  and  regimental  commanders  find  no  justification 
in  the  facts.  Terry  is  entitled  to  every  honor  due  his 
position.  Pennypacker  and  Bell  can  not  be  swept  aside 
so  lightly,  nor  the  regimental  commanders,  whose  names 
I  need  not  give  here. 

I  would  say  specifically  to  that  reference  to  myself, 
that  I  did  not  send  any  request,  "dying"  or  other,  from 
Curtis  to  Terry  that  the  fighting  might  go  on. 

If  Terry  intended  my  division  to  stop  fighting  and  begin 
intrenching  he  did  not  send  the  order  to  Curtis,  one  of  my 
brigade  commanders,  nor  would  Terry  send  re-enforcements 
to  Curtis  over  my  head. 

According  to  this  aide,  Curtis  was  wounded  at  9  o'clock 
while  criticising  Terry's  order  to  stop  fighting  and  begin 
intrenching.  I  say  in  my  report  that  Curtis  was  wounded 
"  a  short  time  before  dark"  on  that  brief  winter's  day. 

I  saw  him  in,  and  emerge  from,  a  covered  way  at  the 
west  end  of  the  parapet.  He  approached  me  and  began 
to  speak;  almost  at  the  same  time  a  shot  struck  him  down. 
Colonel  Daggett,  who  succeeded  to  the  command  of  Curtis's 
brigade,  reports  two  days  after:    "Curtis    was    seriously 


THE  CAPTURE  OF  FORT  FISHER  23 

wounded  about  4.30."  General  Carleton,  who  was  with 
me  at  the  time,  and  picked  up  his  sword  as  he  fell,  says 
Curtis  was  shot  at  about  4.30. 

And  yet  Badeau  would  have  us  believe  that  Curtis  was 
wounded  while  criticising  Terry's  order  to  stop  fighting 
and  begin  intrenching,  at  9  o'clock,  some  four  hours  after 
Curtis  fell  senseless  at  my  feet. 

In  fact,  he  was  wounded  before  dark,  about  an  hour  and 
a  half  after  the  battle  began,  and  some  four  hours  before 
the  fort  was  taken.  The  exact  minute  is  of  no  importance. 
Participants  in  a  battle  are  poor  judges  of  passing  time. 

In  this  instance  it  is  fixed  accurately  enough  in  the 
official  reports  of  Daggett,  Abbott,  and  myself,  as  well  as 
Carleton's  statement  of  his  recollections. 

General  Terry  says  in  his  official  report  of  the  battle: 

"  Brigadier  General  Curtis  and  Colonels  Pennypacker,  Bell, 
and  Abbott,  the  brigade  commanders,  led  them  with  the  utmost 
gallantry.  Curtis  was  wounded  after  fighting  in  the  front  rank, 
rifle  in  hand;  Pennypacker,  while  carrying  the  standard  of  one 
of  his  regiments,  the  first  man  in  a  charge  over  a  traverse;  Bell 
was  mortally  wounded  near  the  palisade." 

This  is  all,  literally  all,  Terry  says  of  exceptional  services 
by  Curtis.  "Fighting  in  the  front  rank,  rifle  in  hand," 
is  most  commendable  under  the  circumstances,  but  it  does 
not  in  itself  justify  claims  for  exceptional  honors. 

My  report  says : 

"The  conduct  of  the  officers  and  men  of  this  division  was 
most  gallant.  .  .  .  Where  the  name  of  every  officer  and  man 
engaged  in  this  desperate  conflict  should  be  submitted,  I  shall 
at  present  only  be  able  to  give  a  few  of  those  most  conspicuous. 
It  is  hoped  all  may  be  properly  rewarded. 

"  Brevet  Brig.-Gen.  N.  M.  Curtis,  commanding  First  Brigade, 
was  prominent  throughout  the  day  for  his  bravery,  coolness,  and 
judgment.  His  services  can  not  be  overestimated.  He  fell 
a  short  time  before  dark,  seriously  wounded  in  the  head  by  a 
canister  shot. 

"  Colonel  Pennypacker,  commanding  the  Second  Brigade,  was 
seriously  wounded  while  planting  his  colors  on  the  third  traverse 


24  THE  CAPTURE  OF  FORT  FISHER 

of  the  work.  This  officer  was  surpassed  by  none,  and  his  ab- 
sence during  the  day  was  most  deeply  felt  and  seriously  regretted. 

"  Col.  L.  Bell,  commanding  Third  Brigade,  was  mortally 
wounded  while  crossing  the  bridge  in  advance  of  the  palisading. 
He  was  an  able  and  efficient  officer ;  one  not  easily  replaced. 

"  Col.  J.  W.  Moore,  203d  Pennsylvania  Volunteers,  behaved 
with  the  most  distinguished  gallantry.  He  was  killed  while 
passing  the  second  traverse  of  the  fort,  in  advance  of  his  regiment, 
waving  his  colors.  Few  equalled,  none  surpassed,  this  brave 
officer." 

My  report  on  Curtis  is  not  less  generous  than  Terry's ;  but 
it  was  not  intended  to,  and  I  doubt  if  it  does,  sustain  his 
pretensions  of  this  day. 

The  official  records,  written  thirty-two  years  ago,  must 
be  the  foundation  for  all  claims  of  honor  and  distinction. 
Nothing  can  now  be  added  to  them  or  taken  from  them. 
By  them  we  all  must  be  judged. 

Misrepresentations  greatly  injured  General  Butler,  and 
deeply  humiliated  General  Weitzel.  Truth  has  been  out- 
raged— truth  overslow  in  the  pursuit  of  falsehood,  not 
always  the  most  agreeable  company. 

In  this  paper  I  have  attempted  to  right  a  wrong.  I  have 
given  few  opinions  of  my  own.  I  have  called  up  the  actors 
themselves,  and  have  let  them  speak  in  their  own  words — 
sometimes  under  oath — always  under  a  sense  of  grave 
responsibility. 

Authorities. 

Report  of  the  Committee  on  the  Conduct  of  the  War,  vol.  ii.,  Fort 
Fisher  Expedition.  War  of  the  Rebellion  Records,  vol.  xlii.,  part  1. 
War  Records,  vol.  xlvi.,  part  1.  War  Records,  vol.  xlvi.,  part  2.  The 
Century  Company's  War  Books,  vol.  iv.  Letter  of  Col.  Wm.  Lamb,  dated 
Norfolk,  Va. 


THE  CAPTURE  OF  FORT  FISHER. 

Read  before  the  Commandery  by 
Brevet  Major-General  Newton  Martin  Curtis,  U.  S.  V., 

May  5,  1897. 

description  of  the  fort. 

COLONEL  LAMB  took  command  of  the  fort,  July  4, 
1862;  he  found  it  a  quadrilateral  work  with  six 
guns,  flanked  north  and  south  by  five  detached 
batteries  carrying  eleven  guns,  four  of  which  were  casemated. 
Only  one  of  the  seventeen  guns  was  of  modern  ordnance. 
He  stated  that  the  frigate  Minnesota  could  have  destroyed 
the  works  and  driven  them  out  in  a  few  hours.  During 
his  occupation  of  the  fort  he  made  it  the  largest  and  best 
equipped  fortification  constructed  by  the  Confederates, 
as  shown  in  his  description  of  it  as  it  stood  before  the 
attack. 

"At  the  land-face  of  Fort  Fisher,  five  miles  from  the 
intrenched  camp  at  Sugar  Loaf,  the  peninsula  was  about 
half  a  mile  wide.  This  face  commenced  about  a  hundred 
feet  from  the  river  with  a  half  bastion,  and  extended  with 
a  heavy  curtain  to  a  full  bastion  on  the  ocean  side,  where  it 
joined  the  sea-face  without  moat,  scarp,  or  counterscarp. 
The  outer  slope  was  twenty  feet  high  from  the  berm  to 
the  top  of  the  parapet,  at  an  angle  of  45 °,  and  was  sodded 
with  marsh  grass  which  grew  luxuriantly.  The  parapet 
was  twenty-five  feet  thick,  with  an  inclination  of  only  one 
foot.  The  revetment  was  five  feet  nine  inches  from  the 
floor  of  the  gun-chambers,  and  these  were  some  twelve  feet 
or  more  from  the  interior  plane.  The  guns  were  all  mounted 
en  barbette  on  Columbiad  carriages;  there  was  not  a  single 
casemated  gun  in  the  fort.     Between  the  gun-chambers, 

25 


2  6  THE  CAPTURE  OF  FORT  FISHER 

containing  one  or  two  guns  each  (there  were  twenty  heavy- 
guns  on  the  land-face),  were  heavy  traverses,  exceeding  in 
size  any  known  to  engineers,  to  protect  from  an  enfilading 
fire.  They  extended  twelve  feet  on  the  parapet  and  were 
twelve  feet  in  height  above  the  parapet,  running  back  thirty 
feet.  The  gun-chambers  were  reached  from  the  rear  by 
steps.  In  each  traverse  was  an  alternate  magazine  or 
bomb-proof,  the  latter  ventilated  by  an  air-chamber. 
Passageways  penetrated  the  traverses  in  the  interior  of 
the  work,  forming  additional  bomb-proofs  for  the  reliefs 
for  the  guns. 

"  The  sea-face  for  a  hundred  yards  from  the  northeast 
bastion  was  of  the  same  massive  character  as  the  land-face. 
A  crescent  battery  intended  for  four  guns  adjoined  this. 
A  series  of  batteries  extended  for  three-quarters  of  a  mile 
along  the  sea,  connected  by  an  infantry  curtain.  These 
batteries  had  heavy  traverses  ten  or  twelve  feet  high  above 
the  top  of  the  parapets.  On  this  line  was  a  bomb-proof 
electric  battery  connected  with  a  system  of  submarine  tor- 
pedoes. Farther  along  a  mound  battery  sixty  feet  high 
was  erected,  with  two  heavy  guns  which  had  a  plunging 
fire  on  the  channel;  this  was  connected  with  the  battery 
north  of  it  by  a  light  curtain.  Following  the  line  of  the 
works  it  was  one  mile  from  the  angle  of  the  sea-  and  land- 
faces  to  the  mound,  and  upon  this  line  twenty-four  heavy 
guns  were  mounted.  From  the  mound  for  nearly  a  mile 
to  the  end  of  the  point  was  a  level  sand  plain  scarcely  three 
feet  above  high  tide,  and  much  of  it  was  submerged  during 
gales.  At  the  point  Battery  Buchanan,  four  guns,  in  the 
the  shape  of  an  ellipse,  commanded  the  inlet,  its  two  n-inch 
guns  covering  the  approach  by  land.  An  advanced  redoubt 
with  a  24-pounder  was  added  after  the  first  expedition.  A 
wharf  for  large  steamers  was  in  close  proximity  to  these 
works.  As  a  defence  against  infantry  there  was  a  system 
of  subterra  torpedoes  extending  across  the  peninsula,  five  to 
six  hundred  feet  from  the  land-face,  and  so  disconnected 
that  the  explosion  of  one  would  not  affect  the  others ;  inside 
the  torpedoes,  about  fifty  feet  from  the  berm  of  the  work, 


THE  CAPTURE  OF  FORT  FISHER  27 

extending  from  river  bank  to  sea-shore,  was  a  heavy  pali- 
sade of  sharpened  logs  nine  feet  high,  pierced  for  musketry. 
There  was  a  redoubt  guarding  the  sally-port,  from  which 
two  Napoleons  were  run  out,  as  occasion  required.  At  the 
river  end  of  the  palisade  was  a  deep  and  muddy  slough, 
across  which  was  a  bridge  over  which  the  river  road  entered 
the  fort.  Commanding  this  bridge  was  a  Napoleon  gun. 
There  were  three  mortars  in  rear  of  the  land-face." 

ITS  IMPORTANCE  TO  THE  CONFEDERACY. 

Thomas  E.  Taylor,  an  English  merchant,  one  of  the 
most  active  and  successful  blockade-runners  during  the 
war,  says  in  his  book,  Running  the  Blockade,  page  139 : 

"  That  morning  (in  Richmond,  Va.,  December,  1864)  I  had 
an  appointment  with  the  Commissary  General,  who  divulged  to 
me  under  promise  of  secrecy  that  Lee's  army  was  in  terrible 
straits,  and  had  in  fact  rations  for  only  thirty  days.  He  asked 
me  if  I  could  help  him.  I  said  I  would  do  my  best,  and  after 
some  negotiations  he  undertook  to  pay  me  a  profit  of  350  per 
cent,  upon  any  provisions  and  meat  I  could  bring  in  within  the 
next  three  weeks.  .  .  .  Although  it  was  a  hard  trip  it  paid 
well,  as  we  had  on  board  coming  out  a  most  magnificent  cargo, 
a  great  deal  of  sea-island  cotton,  the  profits  upon  which  and  the 
provisions  I  had  taken  in  amounted  to  over  eighty-five  thousand 
pounds — not  bad  work  for  about  twenty  days." 

January  15,  1865,  the  day  of  the  capture  of  Fort  Fisher, 
Mr.  Taylor  wrote  from  Nassau  to  his  partners  in  Liverpool, 
England : 

"  General  Lee  told  me  the  other  day  that  if  they  did  not  keep 
Wilmington  they  could  not  save  Richmond.  They  nearly 
had  Fort  Fisher — they  were  within  sixty  yards  of  it,  and  had 
they  pushed  on  as  they  ought  to  have  done  could  have  taken  it. 
It  was  a  terrific  bombardment;  they  estimated  that  about 
40,000  shells  were  sent  into  it.  Colonel  Lamb  behaved  like  a 
brick — splendidly.  I  got  the  last  of  the  Whitworths  in,  and 
they  are  now  at  the  fort.  They  are  very  hard  up  for  food  in  the 
field,  but  the  Banshee  has  this  time  600  barrels  of  pork  and 
1500  boxes  of  meat — enough  to  feed  Lee's  army  for  a  month." 


28  THE  CAPTURE  OF  FORT  FISHER 

Alexander  H.  Stephens  said  of  the  capture  of  Fort 
Fisher  in  his  book,  The  War  between  the  States,  vol.  ii., 
page  619: 

"  The  fall  of  this  fort  was  one  of  the  greatest  disasters  which 
had  befallen  our  cause  from  the  beginning  of  the  war — not 
excepting  the  loss  of  Vicksburg  or  Atlanta.  Forts  Fisher  and 
Caswell  guarded  the  entrance  to  the  Cape  Fear  River,  and 
prevented  the  complete  blockade  of  the  port  of  Wilmington, 
through  which  a  limited  foreign  commerce  had  been  carried  on 
during  the  whole  time.  It  was  by  means  of  what  cotton  could 
thus  be  carried  out,  that  we  had  been  enabled  to  get  along 
financially  as  well  as  we  had ;  and  at  this  point  also  a  considerable 
number  of  arms  and  various  munitions  of  war,  as  well  as  large 
supplies  of  subsistence,  had  been  introduced.  All  other  ports, 
except  Wilmington,  had  long  since  been  closed  by  naval  siege." 

General  Grant,  in  the  61st  chapter  of  the  2d  volume 
of  his  Personal  Memoirs,  refers  to  Fort  Fisher  in  the  follow- 
ing words: 

"Up  to  January,  1865,  the  enemy  occupied  Fort  Fisher,  at 
the  mouth  of  Cape  Fear  River  and  below  the  city  of  Wilmington. 
This  port  was  of  immense  importance  to  the  Confederates, 
because  it  formed  their  principal  inlet  for  blockade-runners,  by 
means  of  which  they  brought  in  from  abroad  such  supplies  and 
munitions  of  war  as  they  could  not  procure  at  home.  It  was 
equally  important  to  us  to  get  possession  of  it,  not  only  because, 
it  was  desirable  to  cut  off  their  supplies  so  as  to  insure  a  speedy 
termination  of  the  war,  but  also  because  foreign  governments 
particularly  the  British  Government,  were  constantly  threaten- 
ing that  unless  ours  could  maintain  the  blockade  off  that  coast 
they  should  cease  to  recognize  any  blockade.  For  these  reasons 
I  determined,  with  the  concurrence  of  the  Navy  Department,  in 
December,  to  send  an  expedition  against  Fort  Fisher  for  the 
purpose  of  capturing  it." 

THE    FIRST   JOINT    EXPEDITION. 

On  the  6th  of  December,  1864,  General  Grant  issued 
written  instructions  to  General  Butler  specifying  that 

"  the   object  of   the  expedition  under  General  Weitzel   is  to 
close  to  the  enemy  the  port  of  Wilmington.     .     .     .     This  will 


THE  CAPTURE  OF  FORT  FISHER  29 

be  gained  by  effecting  a  landing  on  the  mainland  between  the 
Cape  Fear  River  and  the  Atlantic  north  of  the  north  entrance 
to  the  river.  Should  this  landing  be  effected  whilst  the 
enemy  still  hold  Fort  Fisher  and  the  batteries  guarding  the 
entrance  to  the  river,  then  the  troops  should  entrench  them- 
selves, and  by  co-operating  with  the  Navy  effect  the  reduction 
and  capture  of  those  places." 

The  2d  Division  of  the  Twenty-fourth  Corps,  under  the 
command  of  Brigadier-General  Adelbert  Ames,  and  the  ist 
Division  of  the  Twenty-fifth  Corps,  under  the  command  of 
Brigadier-General  C.  J.  Paine,  came  to  Hampton  Roads  on 
the  8th  of  December,  1864,  and  were  transferred  to  ocean 
transports;  on  the  13th  the  transports  sailed,  and  on  the 
15th  rendezvoused  off  Masonborough  Inlet,  North  Carolina. 
The  steamer  Louisiana,  loaded  with  215  tons  of  powder,  had 
been  sent  forward  under  convoy  of  the  Navy.  On  the  24th 
of  December  the  Louisiana  was  sent  inshore  to  a  point  850 
yards  north  of  the  fort  and  exploded  by  Commander  Rhind 
250  yards  from  the  shore  at  1.30  A.  m.  The  only  effect  of 
the  explosion  was  the  awakening  of  a  part  of  the  garrison. 
Admiral  Porter  kept  the  fort  under  a  continuous  fire  from 
his  fleet  from  the  morning  of  December  24th  until  the  even- 
ing of  December  25th,  only  slackening  the  fire  from  dark  to 
daylight.  At  1  o'clock  p.  m.  on  the  25th  the  troops  began 
landing  under  the  protection  of  the  naval  division  com- 
manded by  Captain  O.  S.  Glisson.  Five  hundred  of  my 
brigade  were  put  into  row-boats,  furnished  by  the  trans- 
ports and  the  Navy,  and  in  a  single  line  moved  to  the  shore. 
I  preceded  the  line  in  Captain  Glisson 's  gig,  in  charge  of 
Lieutenant  Farquhar,  and  on  landing  carried  the  Captain's 
flag  and  raised  it  on  a  sand  dune  to  indicate  where  the 
troops  should  land.  Before  the  men  reached  the  shore 
General  Weitzel  landed  and  directed  me  to  at  once  form 
my  troops  in  line  as  they  came  from  the  boats  and  marched 
down  the  beach,  throwing  out  flankers  as  we  proceeded. 
A  company  of  Confederates  in  a  small  earthwork,  half  a  mile 
south,  raised  a  white  flag;  the  Navy  sent  boats  ashore  and 
took  off  as  prisoners  two  officers  and  sixty-five  men.     Con- 


3<D  THE  CAPTURE  OF  FORT  FISHER 

tinuing  the  march  south  we  halted  at  a  small  earthwork, 
which  General  Weitzel  thought  was  800  yards  north  of  Fort 
Fisher,  but  later  measurements  showed  it  to  have  been 
2200  yards.  Here  an  examination  of  the  fort  was  made 
by  a  field-glass  and  it  appeared  to  have  sustained  no  injury 
from  the  naval  fire  beyond  the  displacing  of  a  single  gun 
and  the  breaking  of  a  few  piles  of  the  stockade.  General 
Weitzel  left  me  at  this  point  to  return  to  General  Butler, 
directing  me  to  take  command  of  the  troops  as  they  arrived 
but  not  to  bring  on  an  engagement,  and  to  report  to  General 
Butler  any  matters  of  importance,  stating  that  he  would 
leave  a  signal  sergeant  to  transmit  any  reports  I  might 
wish  to  make.  The  sergeant  did  not  appear.  About 
half  of  the  men  first  landed  had  been  sent  out  as  flankers. 
I  sent  forward  forty  men  toward  the  left  salient  of 
the  fort,  leaving  the  remainder  with  orders  to  retain  at 
that  point  all  troops  that  might  come  forward.  ,  I  followed 
the  skirmish  line,  and  when  we  were  within  fifty  yards  of 
the  parapet  the  staff  carrying  the  garrison  flag  was  shot 
away  by  the  Navy,  and  Capt.  W.  H.  Walling,  i42d  N.  Y., 
went  through  the  ditch  and  stockade  and  up  the  parapet 
and  brought  it  away  at  4.20  p.  m.  About  the  same  time 
Lieutenant  George  Simpson,  i42d  N.  Y.,  of  my  staff  climbed 
a  telegraph  pole  and  cut  the  wire,  breaking  telegraphic 
connection  between  the  fort  and  Wilmington.  Having  no 
means  of  promptly  communicating  with  headquarters,  I 
went  to  the  beach  with  two  men  carrying  the  captured 
flag  and  exhibited  it  at  a  point  about  150  yards  north  of 
the  east  salient  of  the  fort.  Before  starting  to  carry  the 
flag  to  the  beach,  I  had  sent  an  order  to  Lieutenant  Colonel 
Barney,  i42d  N.  Y.,  to  bring  forward  to  Battery  Holland, 
an  earthwork  half  a  mile  north  of  the  west  salient  of  the 
fort,  all  the  troops  which  had  arrived  at  the  reserve.  No 
movement  of  the  troops  had  been  made  when  I  reached 
the  beach,  and  I  walked  up  the  beach  to  ascertain  why  my 
order  to  advance  had  not  been  obeyed,  and  on  arriving 
at  the  reserve  learned  that  a  short  time  before  the  receipt 
of  my  order  to  go  forward,  General  Butler  had  ordered  the 


THE  CAPTURE  OF  FORT  FISHER  3 1 

troops  to  retire  from  the  front  of  the  fort.  Feeling  confident 
that  General  Butler  had  issued  his  order  without  knowing 
the  condition  of  the  fort,  I  sent  an  officer  with  this  message : 

"  Your  order  to  retire  is  held  in  abeyance  that  you  may  know 
of  the  true  condition  of  the  fort:  the  garrison  has  offered  no 
resistance;  the  flagstaff  of  the  fort  was  cut  by  a  naval  shot  and 
one  of  my  officers  brought  from  the  parapet  the  garrison  flag; 
another  officer  cut  the  telegraph  wire  connecting  the  fort  with 
Wilmington;  my  skirmishers  are  now  at  the  parapet." 

I  marched  all  the  troops  which  had  come  forward  to 
Battery  Holland,  and  sent  the  117th  N.  Y.  to  advance 
along  the  river  and  establish  pickets  north  of  Craig's 
Landing  and  extend  them  from  the  river  to  the  beach. 
In  this  movement  a  Confederate  major  surrendered  a 
battalion  of  Junior  Reserves  of  North  Carolina  to  an  officer 
and  two  men.  About  thirty  escaped,  but  227  were  brought 
in  and  carried  north  on  the  return  of  the  expedition.  A 
second  order  was  brought  me  to  retire,  which  I  answered 
as  before,  adding  my  later  operations.  I  did  this  under 
the  impression  that  my  former  report  had  not  been  received, 
which  I  learned  later  was  the  case. 

Soon  after  sending  my  second  report,  Colonels  Corn- 
stock  and  Jackson  came  to  Battery  Holland,  closely  followed 
by  General  Ames.  To  these  officers  I  fully  explained 
the  condition  of  the  garrison  and  my  captures,  and  informed 
them  that  the  Navy  was  able  to  keep  the  garrison  in  the 
bomb-proofs,  and  that  after  an  hour's  cannonading  the 
fort  could  be  successfully  assaulted,  and  urged  them  to 
communicate  this  information  to  General  Butler.  But 
they  did  not  regard  the  proposed  attack  as  feasible,  and 
moreover  did  not  wish  to  assume  any  responsibility  for 
my  disobedience  of  orders.  They  left,  and  soon  after  I 
received  the  third  order  to  retire,  with  the  information  that 
all  the  troops  had  re-embarked  except  those  at  the  front. 
I  then  drew  in  my  pickets  and  marched  up  the  beach  to 
the  point  of  landing  with  my  prisoners  and  sent  the  cap- 
tured officers  to  General  Butler's  ship,   after  which  the 


32  THE  CAPTURE  OF  FORT  FISHER 

surf  prevented  the  further  re-embarkation  of  troops.  With 
between  6co  and  700  men  of  my  brigade  and  220  prisoners 
we  remained  on  the  beach  without  fresh  water,  provisions, 
or  blankets  in  a  sleet  storm  until  Tuesday  afternoon,  the 
27th.  We  were  finally  taken  off  through  a  heavy  surf  by 
a  life-boat,  which  passed  between  a  transport  and  the 
beach  by  means  of  a  rope  extending  from  the  transport 
to  a  stake  on  shore.  When  the  last  load  had  entered  the 
boat  I  cut  the  line  near  the  stake  and  taking  hold  of  the 
end  was  dragged  through  the  breakers  and  aboard  the 
transport;  then  all  vessels  carrying  troops  turned  their 
prows  to  the  north  and  steamed  for  Hampton  Roads. 
While  at  breakfast  in  the  restaurant  at  Fort  Monroe, 
on  the  morning  of  the  29th,  Colonel  Babcock  brought  me 
word  that  General  Grant  desired  to  see  me  on  his  boat  then 
at  the  wharf. 

In  reply  to  the  General's  questions  I  related  all  that 
had  been  done  on  the  expedition  and  what  I  had  seen. 
Our  interview  was  interrupted  by  the  arrival  of  an  officer 
from  General  Sherman,  and  I  was  informed  that  I  would 
be  questioned  later.  The  same  day  I  received  a  telegram 
from  General  Weitzel  ordering  me  to  City  Point,  and  there 
I  related  to  him  all  I  had  learned  about  Fort  Fisher,  and 
repeated  my  opinion  that  it  might  have  been  captured 
had  an  attempt  been  made.  My  statement  and  those  of 
three  officers  and  three  men  of  my  brigade  who  had  been 
on  or  at  the  base  of  the  parapet  of  the  fort  were  taken  down 
by  a  staff -officer  and  sent  to  Colonel  Comstock  of  General 
Grant's  staff,  and  were  forwarded  by  him  to  the  Secretary 
of  War  to  be  filed  with  General  Butler's  report. 

When  General  Butler  gave  the  order  for  the  troops  to 
re-embark  he  had  received  no  report  from  the  troops  at 
the  front,  and  fully  three- fourths  of  his  command  were 
then  on  the  beach.  It  required  more  time  to  re-embark 
the  troops  on  the  beach  than  it  would  have  required  to 
have  landed  those  still  on  the  transports  with  a  full  supply 
of  provisions  and  ammunition. 

The  Congressional  Committee  on  the  Conduct  of  the 


THE  CAPTURE  OP  FORT  FISHER  33 

War  made  an  exhaustive  investigation  of  subjects  not 
covered  by  General  Butler's  orders  and  approved  his  con- 
duct in  regard  to  speculative  matters  not  mentioned  in 
his  orders.  The  findings  of  the  committee  did  not  show- 
that  the  failure  of  the  expedition  was  wholly  due  to  the 
fact  that  General  Grant's  specific  instructions  had  been 
disregarded. 

THE  SECOND  EXPEDITION  TO  FORT  FISHER  AND  ITS  CAPTURE. 

The  second  expedition  was  composed  of  the  troops 
which  had  returned  from  the  first  expedition  not  dis- 
abled, and  Colonel  J.  C.  Abbott's  brigade  of  the  ist  Division 
of  the  Twenty-fourth  Corps.  Before  the  landing  of  troops 
General  Henry  L.  Abbot  joined  the  force  with  Companies 
A,  B,  G,  and  L  of  the  ist  Connecticut  Artillery,  Myrick's 
Battery  E,  3d  U.  S.  Artillery,  Capt.  R.  H.  Lee's  16th 
New  York  Light  Battery,  Major  F.  W.  Prince's  battalion, 
1 6th  New  York  Heavy  Artillery,  and  Companies  A 
and  I  of  the  15th  New  York  Engineers.  General  Ames 
joined  the  expedition  at  the  same  time  from  a  hos- 
pital boat  which  left  Hampton  Roads  one  day  after  the 
expedition  sailed.  On  coming  on  board  the  Atlantic 
he  addressed  me  with  bitter  and  insulting  words,  alleging 
that  I  had  been  guilty  of  a  "  shabby  trick  "  in  sailing  from 
Hampton  Roads  without  him.  He  apparently  failed 
to  consider  that  he  had  not  been  on  the  ship  during  the 
ten  hours  when  my  troops  and  all  his  staff  had  been  on 
board,  that  his  staff  were  informed  of  the  sailing  orders 
as  soon  as  they  came  into  my  hands,  fully  seven  hours 
before  the  ship  moved  out  of  the  Roads,  and  that  his  entire 
staff  believed,  at  the  hour  of  going  to  breakfast  as  the 
ship  was  passing  the  Capes,  that  he  was  on  board.  His 
words  were  resented  and  their  withdrawal  demanded, 
which  was  done  within  the  next  hour,  but  his  subsequent 
conduct  compelled  me  from  that  time  to  refuse  all  inter- 
course with  him  not  required  by  the  strictest  official  duties. 

On  Friday  morning,  January  13th,  the  transports  moved 
up  to  the  place  wThere  our  previous  landing  had  been  effected, 


34  THE  CAPTURE  OF  FORT  FISHER 

4 

and  under  cover  of  the  naval  vessels  the  troops  began  to  dis- 
embark; although  in  a  heavy  surf  all  were  landed,  together 
with  extra  rations,  ammunition,  and  intrenching  tools, 
at  3  o'clock.  The  troops  were  at  once  put  to  work  con- 
structing a  line  of  breastworks  from  the  beach  to  the  Cape 
Fear  River,  which  was  completed  before  daylight  on  the 
morning  of  the  14th.  General  Ames's  division  was  then 
"  withdrawn  from  the  works  and  General  Paine  was  directed 
to  hold  the  line  with  his  division  and  Abbott's  brigade. 

Then  for  the  third  time  since  General  Ames  had  rejoined 
his  command  after  his  unexplained  absence  he  requested 
General  Terry  to  promise  him  that  he  would  not  detail  any 
officer  or  organization  of  his  division  by  name  to  perform 
any  special  duty.  When  this  request  was  denied  he  set 
forth  his  grievances,  stating  that  "  General  Curtis  had  ig- 
nored him  in  consulting  Generals  Grant  and  Weitzel,  had 
not  communicated  to  him  the  orders  for  sailing,  and  so 
thoroughly  did  he  distrust  General  Curtis  and  his  brigade 
that  he  would  not  be  held  responsible  for  anything  they 
might  be  directed  to  do."  General  Terry  replied  "that 
he  would  direct  General  Curtis  to  report  to  him  and  there- 
after he  would  receive  from  him  all  instructions  until 
the  work  in  hand  was  disposed  of."  These  facts  were 
given  to  me  by  General  Terry  in  Richmond,  Virginia,  when 
I  was  serving  as  his  chief  of  staff  in  the  Department  of 
Virginia. 

In  notifying  me  that  I  should  report  to  him  until  further 
orders,  General  Terry  directed  me  to  accompany  him  and 
Colonel  Comstock  with  my  brigade  down  the  peninsula 
that  he  might  examine  the  enemy's  fortifications.  While 
we  were  marching  down,  the  Confederate  gunboat  Chicka- 
mauga,  lying  in  the  Cape  Fear  River,  fired  on  us  and  one 
shell  seriously  wounded  Capt.  James  H.  Reeves  and  three 
men  of  his  regiment,  the  3d  New  York. 

After  General  Terry  had  completed  his  examination 
of  the  fort  and  its  approaches  he  asked:  "Do  you  still 
believe  the  fort  can  be  carried  by  an  assault  with  such  force 
as  I  can  spare  from  the  line  established  last  night,  the 


THE  CAPTURE  OF  FORT  FISHER  35 

holding  of  which  is  of  the  first  importance?"  I  replied 
that  I  believed  the  three  brigades  already  withdrawn  from 
the  line  could  capture  the  fort  by  an  assault  if  the  dispo- 
sitions were  properly  made,  and  if  the  Navy  should  support 
the  troops  from  start  to  finish.  He  said:  "It  has  already 
been  decided  that  in  case  an  assault  is  ordered  you  will 
make  it.  I  will  see  Admiral  Porter  this  evening  and  we 
will  determine  what  course  to  pursue." 

General  Terry  and  Colonel  Comstock  then  left  for  the 
reserve,  having  directed  me  to  report  any  incidents  I 
might  think  it  important  for  him  to  know. 

The  ground  in  front  of  the  west  third  of  the  parapet 
was  swampy,  in  parts  of  it  water  was  twTo  or  more  feet 
deep,  and  opposite  the  gate,  at  the  west  end,  was  a  bridge 
from  which  the  enemy  had  removed  the  floor,  leaving  only 
the  stringers.  At  the  eastern  third  the  ground  was  much 
higher  and  served  as  a  natural  glacis  so  that  an  assaulting 
force  would  be  kept  under  fire  from  its  start  until  it  reached 
the  parapet,  but  an  attacking  force  approaching  the  left 
end  of  the  parapet  would  pass  under  the  plane  of  fire  at 
some  distance  from  the  parapet.  As  soon  as  it  was  dark 
I  deployed  two  lines  of  skirmishers,  one  with  guns  and  the 
other  with  shovels,  at  a  distance  of  five  paces.  The  line 
with  muskets  advanced  twenty  paces  before  the  line  with 
shovels  and  stood  on  guard,  while  the  men  with  shovels 
threw  up  breastworks  high  enough  to  protect  a  man  lying 
on  his  face ;  then  the  rear  line  advanced,  exchanging  shovels 
for  muskets  as  it  passed  the  front  line,  which  threw  up 
breastworks  in  turn  while  the  former  shovellers  stood  guard 
in  their  front.  In  this  manner  the  troops  advanced  close 
to  the  wet  ground,  having  constructed  four  parallel  lines 
of  breastworks,  which  were  later  strengthened  by  fatigue 
parties.  In  advance  of  the  last  line  of  the  newly  constructed 
breastworks  and  to  the  left,  where  the  ground  was  higher 
and  dry,  a  much  higher  and  heavier  breastwork  was  built, 
in  which  forty  men  selected  on  account  of  their  skill  as 
marksmen  were  stationed.  They  were  to  remain  in  this 
position  until  the  next  night  or  until  an  assault  should 


36  THE  CAPTURE  OF  FORT  FISHER 

be  made.  In  the  event  of  an  assault  they  were  to  join  in 
it,  and  before  the  advance  ^should  be  made  they  were  to 
prevent  the  loading  of  the  eight-  and  ten-inch  Columbiads 
which  pointed  toward  our  line  of  approach.  This  work 
was  completed  before  dawn  and  my  men,  except  a  small 
guard,  slept  upon  their  arms. 

Before  noon  of  the  15th,  General  Terry  with  Colonel 
Comstock  came  to  Battery  Holland  and  informed  me  that 
it  had  been  agreed  between  Admiral  Porter  and  himself 
that  an  assault  upon  the  fort  should  be  made  at  3  o'clock; 
that  1600  sailors  and  400  marines  should  attack  the  east 
end  of  the  parapet  and  that  my  brigade  should  attack 
the  left  and  be  followed  by  the  brigades  of  Pennypacker 
and  Bell.  He  approved  the  work  I  had  performed  during 
the  night,  and  sent  sixty  men  of  the  13th  Indiana  to  join  the 
forty  from  my  brigade  left  in  advance,  placing  them  under 
the  command  of  Lieut.  S.  M.  Zent.  Up  to  the  advance 
of  the  attacking  party  these  men  performed  important 
service  and  they  joined  in  with  the  first  line  going  to  the 
parapet. 

General  Terry  said  to  me:  "You  stated  yesterday  that 
you  thought  an  assault  would  be  successful  'if  the  dispo- 
sitions were  properly  made.'  Your  brigade  is  to  lead, 
and  I  would  like  to  know  your  views  as  to  the  formation." 
I  replied  that  I  wished  to  advance  in  line,  brigade  front, 
to  make  advances  from  one  rifle-pit  to  the  next,  all  lying 
down  at  each,  every  movement  to  be  governed  by  the 
action  of  the  enemy  in  coming  to  the  parapet,  and  the  final 
rush  to  be  made  when  the  enemy  showed  an  intention  to 
remain  on  the  parapet.  As  I  advanced,  the  enemy's 
infantry  would  doubtless  mount  the  parapet.  We  would 
then  lie  down  while  the  Navy  drove  them  back;  then  we 
would  advance  to  the  next  rifle-pit  and  so  repeat  until  the 
enemy's  infantry  refused  to  leave  the  parapet,  when  we 
would  make  the  final  rush  and  get  under  the  plane  of  fire 
before  a  second  volley  could  be  fired  upon  us.  General 
Terry  said:  "Do  you  not  wish  to  strike  them  in  column 
with  a  hammer-head  ? "    I  replied :"  A  single  line  can  advance 


THE  CAPTURE  OF  FORT  FISHER  37 

with  little  loss,  but  a  column  would  be  severely  punished 
from  the  start;  my  right  regiment  will  go  straight  to  the 
left  salient,  and  the  three  other  regiments  will  oblique  to 
the  right  and  at  the  parapet  will  be  in  column  for  about 
one-third  of  the  advancing  line."  The  subject  was  dis- 
cussed with  Colonel  Comstock,  who  approved  my  plan, 
which  General  Terry  then  accepted  and  ordered  its  exe- 
cution. I  then  said  to  General  Terry:  "The  final  rush 
will  be  made  when  you  see  me  rise  in  the  middle  of  my  line 
and  hear  me  call  aloud;  soon  after  the  brigade  will  pass 
through  the  stockade  up  the  parapet,  and  when  I  raise 
my  hat  send  Pennypacker's  brigade."  He  replied:  "With 
your  brigade  on  the  parapet  I  shall  feel  certain  of  success; 
a  lodgment  there  assures  victory."  About  noon  Penny- 
packer's  and  Bell's  brigades,  under  command  of  General 
Ames,  came  to  the  front  and  halted  in  rear  of  my  command. 
A  short  time  before  advancing  to  the  place  from  which 
the  real  movement  was  to  be  made,  a  naval  officer,  Lieu- 
tenant Porter  I  believe,  came  to  me  and  said:  "General 
Terry  informs  me  that  you  lead  in  the  assault,  and  I  desire 
to  learn  your  plans  that  the  sailors  and  marines  on  the 
beach  may  move  at  the  same  time  you  do."  I  explained 
the  plan  already  stated,  and  concluded  with  expressing 
my  regret  that  the  Navy  forces  were  not  differently  formed ; 
they  were  then  closely  massed.  He  replied:  "I  am  sorry 
Army  officers  find  fault  with  the  Navy.  We  are  trying 
to  help  them  on  their  own  ground  and  they  ought  to  be 
satisfied."     I  stated: 

"  We  want  your  help  very  much,  both  your  guns  on  the  ships 
and  your  men  on  shore;  but  your  formation  is  bad,  your  front 
is  too  narrow  for  the  depth  of  your  column,  and  going  into 
action  as  your  men  are  now  formed  you  will  get  fearfully  pun- 
ished and  no  good  will  be  rendered  except  that  much  of  the 
fire  directed  to  your  forces  will  be  saved  from  my  line.  I  con- 
demn your  formation  as  a  landsman;  I  would  not  criticise 
nautical  matters." 

Two  thousand  men  from  the  Navy,  from  sixty  ships, 
unacquainted  with  one  another  or  with  the  service  they 


38  THE  CAPTURE  OF  FORT  FISHER 

were  to  undertake,  were  brought  together  on  the  beach 
to  perform  a  most  hazardous  work.  The  number  of  officers 
was  small — entirely  too  few  for  the  number  of  men  engaged. 
As  before  stated,  the  force  was  too  compact.  Their  first 
line  should  have  been  longer  and  thinner,  and  their  main 
body  kept  out  of  the  fire  until  the  first  line  had  reached 
the  fort.  Such  a  plan  requires  good  men — veterans;  it  is, 
however,  the  way  to  assault  fortifications  with  the  least 
loss  of  life,  almost  the  only  plan  by  which  to  achieve  success. 

Before  advancing  to  the  first  line  every  officer  and  man 
had  been  instructed  as  to  his  movements  and  the  order 
in  which  they  would  take  place,  and  that  the  point  of 
attack  would  be  between  the  first  and  the  second  traverses. 

Just  before  the  preliminary  movements  were  begun 
Capt.  A.  G.  Lawrence,  of  General  Ames's  staff,  came  to  me 
and  asked  if  he  could  go  with  my  brigade.  I  replied  that 
he  could  if  he  would  not  interfere  with  its  movements, 
and  sent  him  to  Lieut. -Col.  F.  X.  Meyer,  commanding 
the  117th  New  York,  at  the  right  of  the  line.  Captain 
Lawrence  understood  that  I  was  not  under  the  command  of 
his  chief,  and  that  he  could  not  accompany  my  brigade 
without  my  permission.  He  did  not  go  as  the  represen- 
tative of  another,  nor  did  he  make  the  slightest  attempt 
to  direct  the  movements  of  the  men.  He  fell  at  the 
stockade,  seriously  wounded,  the  victim  of  a  valor  which 
he  conspicuously  exhibited  in  every  battle  in  which  he 
participated. 

The  preliminary  advances  were  made  in  a  succession 
of  thin  lines,  number  one  of  the  first  line  going  forward 
to  a  rifle-pit,  followed  by  number  two;  the  rear  rank 
advancing  in  the  same  manner.  By  this  method  only 
one-fourth  of  the  line  was  exposed  to  the  enemy's  fire. 

Three  short  advances  were  made.  During  each  the 
garrison  came  to  the  parapet;  when  the  line  halted  the 
garrison  returned  to  the  bomb-proofs,  each  time  remaining 
longer  on  the  parapet  and  suffering  greater  damage  from 
the  naval  fire.  When  the  enemy  seemeti  determined  to 
remain  on  the  parapet  the  final  rush  was  made.     I  arose 


THE  CAPTURE  OF  FORT  FISHER  39 

from  the  middle  of  the  line  and  called  out  "Forward," 
advancing  as  I  arose  from  the  ground.  Each  officer  and 
man  had  been  instructed  to  run  as  he  got  up,  and  to  go 
forward  in  silence.  Cheering  was  positively  forbidden, 
the  object  being  to  keep  the  men  from  expending  their 
breath  needlessly,  and  it  was  all-important  to  save  it  for 
the  final  rush  up  the  parapet.  We  were  fifteen  paces  to 
the  front  before  we  reached  the  usual  height  of  a  running 
man.  which  is  about  one-third  less  than  his  height  when 
standing.  The  result  of  this  movement  was  to  cause  the 
first  volley  to  pass  over  our  heads  with  but  little  damage. 
Had  the  order  been  given,  "Attention;  first  battalion, 
guide  right;  second,  third,  and  fourth  battalions,  oblique 
to  the  right,"  many  in  the  line  would  have  been  shot  down 
before  a  start  was  made. 

The  naval  fire  had  made  many  openings  in  the  stockade, 
but  not  enough  to  allow  speedy  passage  through  it.  One 
hundred  axes  which  had  been  distributed  in  the  brigade 
were  vigorously  used,  under  a  galling  fire,  in  making  open- 
ings for  the  men.  The  first  forty  or  fifty  through  the 
stockade  climbed  up  the  parapet  and  met  the  enemy 
between  the  first  and  the  second  traverses.  In  this  space 
were  two  Columbiads,  one  disabled,  the  enemy  loading 
the  other.  The  charge  had  been  sent  home,  but  the  ramrod 
not  withdrawn,  when  we  overpowered  the  gunners.  The 
man  at  the  breech  put  out  his  hand  with  a  primer  to  dis- 
charge the  piece,  after  his  surrender  had  been  demanded. 
A  sharp  blow  from  my  sabre  on  his  outstretched  hand 
quickly  dissuaded  him,  and  the  charge  remained  until 
the  captors  had  leisure  to  withdraw  it. 

The  first  battle-flag  to  come  up  was  a  marker  of  the 
1 1 7th  New  York,  which  was  promptly  placed  on  the  second 
traverse.  Its  right  to  remain  there  was  tested  in  a  hand- 
to-hand  contest  with  swords  and  bayonets,  in  which  the 
Yankees  won. 

We  then  went  down  to  the  floor  of  the  fort  and  secured 
the  men  serving  a  Napoleon  gun  at  the  gate  and  a  number 
of  infantry  posted  at  the  stockade  west  of  the  gate.     These 


40  THE  CAPTURE  OF  FORT  FISHER 

men  were  sent  to  the  rear  without  escort.  Their  capture 
removed  the  chief  obstacle  to  an  approach  by  the  road. 
At  this  time  the  Second  Brigade  began  to  enter  the  fort, 
some  through  the  gate  and  others  over  the  parapet.  Upon 
returning  to  the  parapet  I  found  that  a  large  number  of 
my  brigade  had  succeeded  in  getting  through  the  stockade, 
and  were  advancing  to  the  place  first  captured,  where  they 
were  being  rapidly  joined  by  men  of  the  Second  Brigade. 

At  the  time  we  made  the  grand  rush  for  the  left  of  the 
parapet,  the  naval  column  moved  in  mass  upon  the  sea 
bastion.  The  enemy  believing  this  to  be  the  main  attack 
turned  upon  them  all  the  guns  which  could  sweep  the 
beach,  and  massed  more  than  half  of  his  infantry  behind 
the  right  of  the  parapet  to  repel  the  attack.  Colonel 
Lamb  conducted  this  defence  of  the  sea  bastion  in  person. 
The  enemy's  fire  upon  the  naval  column  was  terribly 
effective,  spreading  death  and  disorder.  Except  a  few 
who  reached  the  stockade  those  not  disabled  soon  retired. 

General  Whiting  occupied  a  position  on  the  parapet 
midway  between  the  sea  bastion  and  the  sally-port.  The 
repulse  of  the  naval  column  caused  the  troops  under  Colonel 
Lamb  and  General  Whiting  to  cheer  vigorously,  the  cheers 
being  heard  above  the  roar  of  the  cannon ;  but  their  exulta- 
tion was  short,  for  upon  looking  to  the  west  they  saw 
two  United  States  flags  on  the  left  of  the  parapet — their 
comrades  unable  to  remove  them.  General  Whiting  hurried 
with  the  troops  near  him  to  the  left  of  the  line,  and  joined 
in  the  contest  which  we  were  making  for  the  third  traverse. 
In  this  hand-to-hand  conflict  he  received  a  mortal  wound 
and  was  carried  to  a  bomb-proof.  Colonel  Pennypacker, 
commanding  the  Second  Brigade,  was  severely  wounded 
while  placing  the  colors  of  his  regiment  on  this  traverse, 
and  Colonel  Moore,  203d  Pennsylvania,  was  killed  while 
advancing  with  the  colors  of  his  regiment  to  the  same 
position.  Lieutenant-Colonel  Barney  and  Major  Jones, 
i42d  New  York,  were  wounded  here,  but  soon  after  re-entered 
the  contest.  Here  Captain  Thomas,  117th  New  York, 
was  killed.      Lieutenant-Colonel  Meyer  and  Major  Bagg, 


THE  CAPTURE  OF  FORT  FISHER  4 1 

117th  New  York,  both  wounded,  and  many  officers  of  the 
Second  Brigade,  whose  names  I  cannot  give,  came  to 
the  front  and  joined  in  the  contest  until  our  possession  of 
the  traverse  was  undisputed.  Our  killed  and  wounded  on 
the  parapet  impeded  our  advance  to  the  fourth  traverse  so 
that  we  were  scarcely  able  to  go  forward  without  treading 
upon  them.  Colonel  Lamb  then  came  up  with  troops 
to  meet  us  at  the  fourth  traverse,  bringing  into  action 
a  larger  number  than  we  had  met  at  the  third.  Our  numbers 
were  also  increased  by  those  who  joined  us  as  they  came 
upon  the  parapet.  The  struggle  for  the  fourth  traverse 
was  the  hottest  and  most  prolonged  single  contest  of  the 
day.  The  loss  of  life  was  great  on  both  sides.  The  killed 
and  wounded  were  set  aside  to  make  room  for  their  com- 
rades who  came  impetuously  forward  to  support  the  respec- 
tive sides.  In  this  contest  Colonel  Lamb  was  seriously 
wounded  and  was  taken  to  the  same  bomb-proof  occupied 
by  General  Whiting.  Our  success  in  this  fearful  struggle 
turned  the  tide,  the  enemy's  defence  became  less  spirited 
and  effective,  and  each  succeeding  traverse  was  taken  with 
less  difficulty. 

The  naval  fire  throughout  the  day  had  been  delivered 
with  singular  accuracy,  at  the  rate  of  two  or  three  shells 
per  second,  in  front  of  the  assaulting  forces;  but  at  the  fifth 
traverse  a  shot  went  wide  of  its  mark  and  killed  or  disabled 
all  but  four  men  in  our  front  line.  Fearing  that  a  slackening 
of  our  fire  would  invite  a  countercharge,  I  myself  discharged 
the  guns  of  the  killed  and  disabled  men  until  reinforcements 
were  brought  forward.  A  sudden  emergency  compelled 
this  action.  It  was  not  done  to  encourage  the  soldiers — no 
such  efforts  were  needed  to  quicken  their  zeal.  Men  unable 
to  stand  and  fire  their  pieces  handed  up  the  guns  of  their 
dead  and  helpless  comrades,  and  when  given  back  reloaded 
them  again  and  again,  exhibiting  a  frenzied  zeal  and 
unselfish  devotion  that  seemingly  nothing  but  death 
could  chill.  Within  twenty  minutes  I  found  wounded  men 
dead  who  had  thus  handed  me  their  guns. 

While  we  were  capturing  these  traverses,  others  on  the 


42  THE  CAPTURE  OF  FORT  FISHER 

floor  of  the  fort  fought  the  enemy  in  bomb-proofs  and 
behind  obstructions  near  the  parapet,  keeping  pace  with 
us.  Lieutenant-Colonel  Lyman,  203d  Pennsylvania,  was 
killed  while  actively  urging  this  line  forward.  Several 
company  officers  were  in  this  detachment,  and  vigorously 
conducted  these  operations  after  his  death,  among  them 
Captain  William  H.  Walling,  1426.  New  York  Volunteers, 
who  on  the  first  expedition  had  captured  the  garrison 
flag  of  the  fort.  Captain  R.  D.  Morehouse,  1426.  New 
York  Volunteers,  in  charge  of  a  party  captured  a  large 
number  of  Confederates  in  the  sally-port,  from  which  they 
had  energetically  opposed  the  advance  of  our  forces  on 
the  floor  of  the  fort ;  but  our  progress  on  the  parapet  rendered 
their  position  untenable,  and  by  a  skilful  movement  he 
captured  them  before  they  could  retire  to  other  defences. 
His  skill  and  bravery  were  as  conspicuous  then  as  his 
modest  dignity  is  noticeable  among  his  companions  of 
the  Loyal  Legion.  This  capture  was  considered  by  the 
Confederates  a  dishonorable  surrender.  They  did  not  know 
then  that  their  men  had  been  compelled  to  surrender  only 
when  retreat  was  impossible. 

Progress  was  more  easily  and  steadily  made  until  we 
gained  possession  of  the  seventh  traverse  at  4.45  p.  m., 
where  it  was  found  that  our  best  marksmen  could  drive 
the  gunners  from  the  Columbiad  on  the  sea  bastion,  with 
which  the  enemy  had  enfiladed  the  ditch  and  given  the 
assailants  more  trouble  than  with  any  other  piece  in  the 
fort.  When  it  was  discovered  that  this  gun  could  be 
silenced,  the  project  of  marching  up  the  ditch  and  capturing 
the  sea  bastion  was  decided  upon,  and  men  at  the  west 
end  of  the  fort  were  summoned  to  undertake  it.  I  sent 
Corporal  Jones,  of  the  color-guard  of  the  117th  New  York, 
to  the  west  end  of  the  fort  to  bring  these  men  forward. 
He  came  back,  and  stated  that  General  Ames  had  directed 
him  to  return  and  say  that  men  could  not  be  sent,  but 
spades  to  fortify  would  be  furnished.  My  orderly  A.  D. 
Knight  was  next  sent  to  obtain  men,  and  directed  to  state 
the  object  of  the  movement  to  be  made.     He  soon  returned 


THE  CAPTURE  OF  FORT  FISHER  43 

and  stated  that  General  Ames  had  ordered  him  to  say 
that  the  men  were  exhausted  and  no  further  advance  would 
be  attempted  until  reinforcements  arrived  in  the  morning ; 
that  we  should  hold  the  ground  occupied,  if  possible,  and 
that  intrenching  tools  would  be  sent  to  us.  I  directed 
Orderly  Knight  to  go  back  and  request  officers  under  my 
rank  to  collect  men  and  bring  them  forward,  so  that  the 
attack  could  be  made  before  dark ;  to  say  that  the  resistance 
of  the  enemy  was  less  than  at  the  beginning  of  the  battle, 
and  that  the  capture  of  the  bastion  would  compel  an  early 
surrender.  Knight  soon  returned  with  an  armful  of  spades 
which  General  Ames  had  ordered  him  to  carry  to  me  that 
I  might  fortify  and  hold  our  position  until  fresh  troops  came 
into  the  fort.  I  threw  the  spades  over  the  traverse  to  the 
Confederates.  Being  convinced  that  General  Ames  intended 
to  suspend  operations  until  reinforcements  came  in,  I 
directed  Silas  W.  Kempton,  Mate  U.  S.  Navy,  who  had 
reported  to  me  early  in  the  engagement  and  volunteered 
to  serve  in  whatever  capacity  he  might  be  useful,  to  go 
for  the  second  time  to  General  Terry,  now  to  urge  him  to 
have  the  troops  then  engaged  in  throwing  up  fortifications 
in  rear  of  the  left  end  of  the  parapet  to  join  in  a  general 
advance,  and  take  possession  of  the  fort  before  reinforce- 
ments could  be  sent  in  by  the  enemy.  I  instructed  Kemp- 
ton  to  state  that  the  enemy  were  offering  slight  resistance, 
and  that  a  bold  push  would  secure  a  victory  already  substan- 
tially won.  This  young  sailor  had  previously  been  sent  to 
General  Terry,  after  we  had  won  possession  of  the  fourth 
traverse,  to  ask  him  to  have  the  naval  fire  in  front  of  our 
advancing  lines  increased,  if  possible,  and  to  have  the 
fuses  cut  shorter,  so  as  to  cause  the  explosion  of  the  shells 
nearer  the  parapet.  Many  had  passed  beyond  the  fort 
and  were  lost  by  exploding  in  the  marsh  and  river.  The 
zeal  and  intelligence  of  Mr.  Kempton  commanded  my 
warmest  admiration. 

I  then  directed  Capt.  David  B.  Magill,  117th  New 
York,  to  take  the  next  traverse  with  the  first  men  who 
should  come  up,  and  went  to  the  west  end  of  the  parapet 


44  THE  CAPTURE  OF  FORT  FISHER 

and.  to  the  floor  of  the  fort  in  rear  of  it,  to  obtain  men  to 
march  up  the  ditch  to  the  sea  bastion.  While  collecting 
them  on  the  floor  of  the  fort  in  rear  of  the  first  and  second 
traverses,  General  Ames  addressed  me,  for  the  first  time 
since  the  movement  on  the  fort  had  begun,  and  said:  ''I 
have  two  or  three  times  sent  you  word  to  fortify  your 
position  and  hold  it  until  reinforcements  can  be  sent  to 
aid  us;  the  men  are  exhausted,  and  I  will  not  order  them 
to  go  forward."  I  directed  his  attention  to  two  steamboats 
in  the  Cape  Fear  River  loaded  with  Confederate  troops 
waiting  for  darkness  to  enable  them  to  land,  which  they 
could  not  do  while  it  was  light  because  of  the  naval  fire, 
and  said:  "Should  they  succeed  in  landing  they  may  be 
able  to  drive  us  out;  therefore,  the  fort  should  be  captured 
before  fresh  troops  come  to  the  enemy."  I  informed  him 
that  the  garrison  was  resisting  with  less  spirit  than  earlier 
in  the  day,  and  asserted  that  complete  victory  was  within 
our  grasp  if  we  aroused  ourselves  and  pushed  the  advantage 
we  surely  had,  and  that  I  intended  to  conduct  the  move- 
ment up  the  ditch  to  the  sea  bastion  if  I  could  get  but  fifty 
men.  Several  said,  ''We  will  go."  At  this  time  the  sun 
was  just  disappearing,  at  5.15  p.m., — as  stated  by  the  Navy 
Department,  two  hours  and  five  minutes  after  the  opening 
of  the  battle. 

While  the  volunteers  were  assembling  I  went  farther 
into  the  fort,  and  had  ascended  a  magazine  or  sand  dune 
for  the  purpose  of  looking  into  the  angle  of  the  bastion  I 
intended  to  attack,  when  I  was  struck  and  disabled  by  two 
fragments  of  a  shell,  one  destroying  the  left  eye  and  the 
other  carrying  away  a  portion  of  the  frontal  bone.  I  was 
unconscious  for  several  hours. 

From  official  and  other  trustworthy  sources  it  is  learned 
that  after  sundown  no  efforts  were  made  to  advance  our 
lines,  except  the  capture  of  an  additional  traverse  by  the 
troops  left  under  command  of  Captain  Magill  when  I 
started  out  to  collect  men  to  go  up  the  ditch.  About  8 
o'clock  a  regiment  of  colored  troops  from  General  Paine's 
line  was  sent  to  General  Ames  to  assist  in  taking  possession 


THE  CAPTURE  OF  FORT  FISHER  45 

of  the  fort.  He  directed  them  to  stack  arms  outside  the 
fort  and  join  the  men  in  the  rear  of  the  left  end  of  the 
parapet  in  throwing  up  breastworks  to  protect  the  assail- 
ants from  a  countercharge  by  the  garrison.  Late  in  the 
afternoon  the  sailors  and  marines  had  been  withdrawn  from 
the  beach  and  sent  to  relieve  Abbott's  brigade  which  was 
brought  down  to  the  fort.  The  3d  New  Hampshire  was 
placed  on  the  right  of  Abbott's  brigade,  and  when  Major 
Trickey  in  command  of  it  was  directed  by  General  Abbott 
to  take  the  traverse  on  that  part  of  the  parapet  where  the 
greatest  resistance  was  expected  to  be  made,  the  Major 
called  his  attention  to  the  fact  that  he  had  less  than  eighty 
men  in  his  command,  and  that  a  greater  number  might  be 
needed  to  carry  the  traverses.  General  Abbott  informed 
him  he  would  be  supported  and  that  his  regiment  was 
specially  named  by  General  Terry  for  that  duty.  The  fact 
that  the  regiment  was  armed  with  repeating  rifles  may 
have  influenced  General  Terry  in  making  the  selection. 
The  order  for  the  placing  of  the  3d  New  Hampshire  as 
stated  by  General  Abbott  shows  that  General  Terry  kept 
in  close  touch  with  the  several  brigades,  and  gave  personal 
attention  to  their  movements  throughout  the  battle.  When 
Abbott's  brigade  reached  the  unoccupied  portion  of  the 
parapet  the  enemy  received  it  with  a  volley,  but  not  heavy 
enough  to  check  its  progress.  It  marched  over  the  parapet, 
across  the  floor  of  the  fort,  parallel  to  the  sea-face,  and 
southward  to  Battery  Buchanan,  where  the  garrison  of 
Fort  Fisher  was  found  unarmed  and  demoralized.  These 
operations  of  Abbott's  brigade  were  successfully  carried 
out  with  the  loss  of  four  men  killed  and  twenty-three 
wounded.  At  dark  General  Whiting  and  Colonel  Lamb 
were  carried  to  Battery  Buchanan,  the  former  mortally 
and  the  latter  seriously  wounded.  It  was  proposed  to  send 
them  across  the  river  in  small  boats,  as  many  had  been, 
but  they  determined  to  remain  and  share  the  fate  of  the 
garrison. 

The  troops  entered  the  fort  without  hesitation  and  vied 
one  with  another,  officers  and  men  alike,  for  possession  of 


46  THE  CAPTURE  OF  FORT  FISHER 

the  work.  The  loss  in  the  early  part  of  the  engagement  of 
Colonel  Bell,  commanding  Third  Brigade,  and  Colonel 
Smith,  1 1 2th  New  York,  both  mortally  wounded  before 
reaching  the  work,  and  of  Colonel  Moore,  killed  soon  after 
mounting  the  parapet,  was  sorely  felt  throughout  the  day. 
They  were  soldiers  of  marked  ability,  veterans  who  had 
won  distinction  in  every  campaign  in  which  the  army 
to  which  they  belonged  had  been  engaged.  Colonel  Penny- 
packer,  commanding  Second  Brigade,  was  seriously  wounded 
early  in  the  engagement.  This  distinguished  officer  had  put 
his  brigade  into  position  and  given  it  an  impulse  which  con- 
tinued throughout  the  day.  The  loss  of  no  officer  could 
have  been  greater.  At  the  end  of  the  first  hour  several 
officers  and  men  were  disabled  or  bearing  wounds  that 
would  have  justified  their  retirement  from  an  ordinary 
engagement,  and  a  suspension  of  hostilities  would  have 
followed  had  not  the  troops  been  of  the  highest  grade. 
Nine-tenths  of  them  were  veterans  who  had  served  in  the 
campaigns  in  Virginia  and  the  Carolinas,  and  had  fought  in 
every  battle  from  Drury's  Farm  and  Cold  Harbor  to  the 
last  battle  in  the  campaign  before  Petersburg  and  Rich- 
mond. There  was  not  an  officer  or  man  in  the  four  brigades 
who  did  not  merit  the  highest  commendation  for  unyielding 
persistency,  courage,  and  devotion.  While  the  First  and 
the  Second  Brigades  were  the  first  to  enter  the  fort  and 
contended  together  without  distinction  for  possession  of  the 
parapet,  it  is  not  my  intention  to  claim  that  either  brigade 
was  superior.  Circumstances  to  a  large  degree,  no  doubt, 
influenced  the  selection  as  to  the  order  in  which  the  troops 
attacked  the  fort.  My  brigade  had  been  near  it  on  the  first 
expedition,  had  taken  its  flag  and  a  battalion  of  prisoners, 
and  all  its  members  believed  that  it  could  have  been 
captured  then.  The  knowledge  of  this  fact  undoubtedly 
had  much  weight  in  influencing  the  commanding  general  to 
select  that  brigade  to  lead  the  assaulting  forces.  Each 
brigade  took  the  position  assigned  to  it,  and  performed  its 
duties  in  a  most  courageous  and  efficient  manner. 

The   crisis    was   passed    soon    after   four   o'clock,    and 


THE  CAPTURE  OF  FORT  FISHER  47 

success  was  assured  when  the  First  and  Second  Brigades 
had  mounted  the  parapet  and  demonstrated  their  ability 
not  only  to  hold  their  ground  but  to  make  steady  progress 
from  traverse  to  traverse.  It  was  a  soldiers'  fight,  and 
had  Ames  and  Curtis  both  been  killed  or  disabled  at  the 
time  Pennypacker  was  wounded,  the  battle  would  have 
proceeded  successfully  under  the  command  of  field  and 
company  officers.  When  the  battle  was  well  begun,  skill 
and  generalship  consisted  in  physical  blows,  and  to  every 
one  who  struck  them  honor  is  due. 

Admiral  Porter  wanted  success  no  less  than  General 
Terry,  and  was  ready  to  take  any  steps  in  the  line  of  his 
profession  to  win  it.  He  knew,  as  all  did,  that  a  naval 
column  would  divert  the  garrison,  and  asked  the  Navy  to 
furnish  men  to  form  it.  In  pursuit  of  victory  desperate 
chances  were  often  taken.  Never  did  men  undertake  a 
more  difficult  or  hazardous  task,  and  never  did  men  offer 
themselves  in  their  country's  service  with  more  zeal,  courage, 
or  unselfish  devotion  than  did  the  officers  and  men  of  the 
Navy  and  the  Marines  on  the  beach  at  Fort  Fisher.  Their 
action  contributed  to  the  progress  of  the  Army — whether 
the  gain  justified  the  losses  we  shall  never  know.  The 
naval  column  was  important  as  a  diversion,  but  its  value 
was  slight  in  comparison  with  the  fire  of  the  six  hundred 
guns  of  the  ships  trained  on  the  fort.  The  fleet  maintained 
an  uninterrupted  fire  for  two  days,  exceeding  in  effective- 
ness any  bombardment  recorded  in  the  annals  of  war.  To 
Admiral  Porter's  fleet  the  army  was  indebted  for  its  un- 
contested landing,  its  uninterrupted  approach  to  within 
charging  distance  of  the  fort,  and  the  well  directed  fire  in 
front  of  the  assaulting  forces  without  which  success  would 
have  been  impossible. 

It  will  not  be  out  of  place  to  refer  to  the  enemy  and 
their  defence  of  the  fort.  The  constant  fire  of  the  Navy 
for  two  days  deprived  the  garrison  of  opportunity  to  rest  or 
prepare  food.  They  suffered  but  little  from  this  bombard- 
ment until  brought  out  of  their  bomb-proofs  to  contest 
the  advance  of  the  assaulting  forces ;  then  they  came  under 


48  THE  CAPTURE  OF  FORT  FISHER 

the  hottest  fire  men  ever  encountered.  Colonel  Lamb 
skillfully  conducted,  the  defence,  aided  by  General  Whiting, 
who  had  volunteered  his  services  on  entering  the  fort. 
They  protected  their  men  until  the  decisive  moment  and  then 
led  them  with  conspicuous  gallantry. 

The  left  of  the  parapet  was  in  charge  of  a  junior  officer 
whose  mistake,  that  of  a  moment  only,  was  in  failing  to 
mount  the  parapet  and  contest  our  advance  from  the  ditch. 
The  men  serving  the  piece  of  artillery  covering  the  road 
west  of  the  parapet  were  so  intent  in  performing  their 
duty  that  they  were  unconscious  of  our  approach  until 
ordered  to  surrender  by  men  of  the  117th  New  York,  who 
went  down  from  the  paarpet  after  capturing  the  second 
traverse. 

General  Bragg,  in  his  report  of  the  capture  of  the  fort, 
says  of  our  assaulting  line:  "His  army  column,  preceded  by 
a  single  regiment,  approached  along  the  river  and  entered 
the  work  on  that  flank  almost  unopposed."  This  does  a 
great  injustice  to  the  men  guarding  the  left,  who  made  it 
fatal  to  approach  by  the  road;  and  not  until  their  capture, 
in  active  defence  of  the  work,  was  the  road  made  a  safer 
line  of  approach  than  over  the  parapet.  The  Confederate 
garrison  of  Fort  Fisher  might  well  resent  this  aspersion  of 
their  most  stubborn  defence  and  justly  complain  of  the 
indifference  of  General  Bragg,  who  had  six  thousand  men 
within  striking  distance  of  our  defensive  line — more  than 
twice  the  number  of  men  holding  that  line, — in  not  vigor- 
ously attacking  it.  General  Bragg  reported  to  General 
Lee  that  "at  4  p.m.,  when  the  enemy's  infantry  advanced 
to  the  assault,  our  troops  were  making  a  heavy  demonstra- 
tion against  the  enemy's  rear."  Although  General  Bragg 
expended  a  large  amount  of  ammunition  in  making  this 
so-called  "heavy  demonstration,"  General  Paine's  line  was 
maintained  without  the  loss  or  injury  of  a  single  Union 
soldier. 

I  have  said  that  the  enemy  plainly  showed  signs  of 
weakening  before  5  p.m.,  and  that  full  possession  of  the 
fort  only  awaited  the  advance  of  the  Federal  troops.     This 


THE  CAPTURE  OF  FORT  FISHER  49 

statement  is  supported  by  the  report  of  General  Whiting, 
who  says: 

"The  fall  both  of  the  general  and  the  colonel  command- 
ing the  fort,  one  about  4  and  the  other  about  4.30  p.m., 
had  a  perceptible  effect  upon  the  men,  and  no  doubt  hastened 
greatly  the  result,  but  we  were  overpowered,  and  no  skill 
or  gallantry  could  have  saved  the  place,  after  he  effected  a 
lodgment,  except  attack  in  the  rear." 

"The  Abstract  from  Return  of  the  Expeditionary 
Forces,  Bvet.  Maj.-Gen.  Alfred  H.  Terry,  U.  S.  Army, 
Commanding,  for  January  10,  1865,"  states  the  aggregate 
of  the  four  brigades  engaged  in  reducing  the  fort,  five  days 
before  the  assault,  to  have  been  two  hundred  and  fifty- 
seven  officers  and  five  thousand  one  hundred  and  seventy- 
two  men.  Of  this  number  probably  thirty-seven  hundred 
took  part  in  the  assault,  and  at  9  o'clock  p.m.  thirteen 
hundred  men  under  Abbott  and  three  hundred  colored 
troops  entered  the  fort  substantially  unopposed,  to  secure 
a  victory  actually  won  four  hours  before.  There  are  no 
records  in  the  War  Department  giving  the  number  of 
officers  and  men  in  the  brigades  commanded  respectively 
by  Curtis,  Penny  packer,  and  Bell,  or  the  number  of  men 
taken  into  action.  It  is  estimated  that  the  First  (Curtis's) 
Brigade  numbered  nine  hundred  officers  and  men;  the 
Second  (Pennypacker's),  seventeen  hundred  officers  and 
men;  the  Third  (Bell's),  eleven  hundred  officers  and  men; 
Abbott's  brigade,  thirteen  hundred  officers  and  men. 

The  return  of  the  casualties  indicates  the  actual  resistance 
met  by  the  several  brigades,  which  I  give  in  the  order  they 
respectively  entered  the  fort.  Curtis's  brigade,  two  officers 
and  thirty -seven  men  killed;  eighteen  officers  and  one 
hundred  and  sixty-six  men  wounded;  five  missing:  25.33 
per  cent.  Pennypacker's  brigade,  six  officers  and  forty- 
five  men  killed;  six  officers  and  two  hundred  and  eleven 
men  wounded;  two  missing:  16.47  per  cent.  Bell's  brigade, 
two  officers  and  fourteen  men  killed ;  six  officers  and  ninety- 
one  men  wounded;  two  missing:  10.04  per  cent.  Abbott's 
brigade,  four  men  killed;  two  officers  and  twenty-one  men 


50  THE  CAPTURE  OF  FORT  FISHER 

wounded;  four  missing:  2.33  per  cent.  The  missing  in- 
cludes those  injured  beyond  recognition  and  those  buried 
in  the  sand  by  the  explosion  of  a  magazine  after  the  capture. 

In  bestowing  honors  for  the  victory  at  Fort  Fisher  we 
should  prominently  mention  the  Secretary  of  the  Navy,  and 
the  officers  and  men  of  the  North  Atlantic  blockading 
squadron,  who  for  three  years  had  continually  urged  the 
sending  of  an  army  force  to  join  the  navy  in  an  expedition 
to  reduce  the  defences  at  the  mouth  of  the  Cape  Fear  River. 
Nor  should  we  neglect  prominently  to  associate  General 
Grant  with  its  capture.  He  organized  the  military  force, 
and  in  spite  of  the  first  failure  adhered  to  his  purpose  with 
unyielding  persistency  until  the  end  was  accomplished- 
The  skill  and  labors  of  Admiral  Porter  and  General  Terry 
were  fully  acknowledged  by  the  Administration  and  Con- 
gress, which  all  serving  under  them  heartily  approve. 

Whatever  may  be  the  opinion  of  military  men, as  to  the 
wisdom  of  employing  troops  in  throwing  up  breastworks 
inside  the  fort,  using  a  greater  number  of  men  than  were 
engaged  with  the  enemy  in  close  action  on  the  parapet  and 
the  floor  of  the  fort  near  the  parapet — instead  of  sending 
them  across  the  floor  of  the  fort  to  the  sea-face,  which  move- 
ment would  have  ended  the  contest  in  half  an  hour,  certain 
it  is  all  will  acknowledge  that  General  Ames,  under  whose 
directions  these  engineering  operations  were  carried  on,  bore 
himself  with  coolness  and  courage. 

The  services  of  the  gentleman  who  went  on  both  ex- 
peditions in  an  advisory  capacity,  although  on  the  first 
the  most  important  action — the  withdrawal  of  the  troops 
from  the  beach — was  determined  upon  without  his  opinion 
being  asked,  were  briefly  stated  by  General  Terry: 

"To  Bvt.  Brig.-Gen.  C.  B.  Comstock,  Aide-de-Camp 
on  the  staff  of  the  Lieutenant  General,  I  am  under  the 
deepest  obligations.  At  every  step  of  our  progress  I 
received  from  him  the  most  valuable  assistance.  For  the 
final  success  of  our  part  of  the  operations  the  country  is 
more  indebted  to  him  than  to  me." 

It  would  be  unjust,  as  it  would  be  ungenerous,  to  with- 


THE  CAPTURE  OF  FORT  FISHER  5 1 

hold  from  the  field  and  company  officers  the  warmest 
praise  for  their  watchfulness  in  detecting  every  advantage 
afforded  by  the  enemy  and  for  their  irresistible  impetuosity 
and  valor,  which  overcame  obstacles  as  great  as  human 
skill  and  stubborn  devotion  could  create,  or  to  fail  grate- 
fully to  acknowledge  the  services  of  the  men  in  the  ranks. 
Their  steadiness,  fortitude,  and  bravery  were  surpassed  by 
no  one  exercising  command  over  them.  Certainly  our 
great  commander  did  not  neglect  to  commend  every  member 
of  the  military  force  composing  the  expedition,  irrespective 
of  rank  or  grade,  in  one  of  the  most  extraordinary  docu- 
ments ever  filed  with  the  archives  of  the  War  Department, 
wherein  he  recommended  their  commander  for  a  high  po- 
sition in  the  regular  army,  based  solely  on  their  services, 
and  independent  of  the  promotions  given  to  Terry,  Ames, 
Pennypacker,  and  Curtis  in  acknowledgment  of  their  personal 
services. 

City  Point,  Va.,  January  17,  1865. 
Hon.  E.  M.  Stanton, 

Secretary  of  War. 
As  a  substantial  recognition  of  the  bravery  of  both  officers 
and  men  in  the  capture  of  Fort  Fisher,  and  the  important  service 
thereby  rendered  to  their  country,  I  do  most  respectfully 
recommend  Bvt.  Maj.  Alfred  H.  Terry,  U.  S.  Volunteers,  their 
commanding  officer,  for  appointment  as  Brigadier  General  in 
the  Regular  Army. 

U.  S.  Grant, 

Lieutenant-  General . 


A  BOY  AT  SHILOH. 

Read  by  Captain  Charles  Morton,  U.  S.  Army, 
October  6,  1897. 

THE  battle  of  Shiloh  was  not  only  the  first  great  battle 
in  the  late  great  war  but  one  of  the  greatest  in  our 
history,  and  it  stands  second  to  none  in  modern 
history  for  its  fierceness  and  persistent  determination.  It 
was  fought  without  generals  and,  it  may  be  said,  almost 
without  soldiers.  It  was  armed  Americans  against  Amer- 
icans, terribly  in  earnest  and  full  of  fight,  enfuriated  by  a 
hatred  that  had  grown  out  of  fifty  years  of  bitter  political 
strife  that  was  to  be  settled  by  a  physical  contest  with  arms. 
Both  sides  believed  that  upon  the  turn  of  this  battle,  in 
great  measure,  hung  the  general  final  result.  And  who, 
to-day,  can  doubt  that  there  would  have  been  a  more 
speedy  termination  of  the  war,  on  much  different  terms,  had 
our  army  met  on  this  occasion  total  defeat,  or  had  its  victory 
been  promptly  and  vigorously  followed  up?  Though  the 
passion  and  hatred  that  then  obtained,  gradually,  and 
before  the  end  of  the  war  almost  entirely  disappeared,  the 
battle  has  been  fought  over  and  over  again  since,  in  not 
always  entirely  dispassionate  and  harmless  ink.  Indeed, 
it  has  been  written  up  from  so  many  different  standpoints, 
that  it  seems  there  is  nothing  left  untold;  and  in  such 
masterly  ways,  that  any  account  by  me  would  prove  weak 
and  insipid.  Yet  there  are  a  few  facts  relating  to  the  battle, 
that  came  under  my  personal  observation  or  to  my  know- 
ledge at  the  time,  that  have  been  barely  touched  upon,  or 
not  at  all,  in  any  of  the  numerous  descriptions  I  have  read. 
They  seem  to  me  all-important  facts  for  truthful  history  and 
a  better  understanding  of  the  battle. 

The  proper  limits  of  a  paper  to  be  read  here  preclude  the 

52 


' 


FOR  USE  ONLY  IN 
THE  NORTH  CAROLINA  COLLECTION 


mm 


Mil  II 

■Bis 

IBBI 


